Jonny Sycamore is managing partner at Jaywing, a multi-award-winning integrated agency.
With over 18 years’ experience working across digital and creative marketing agencies from London to Sydney, Sycamore relocated back to the UK last year with his young family and joined Jaywing.
He was brought into the agency last year to support ambitious growth plans for 2024 in becoming the most inspirational, valued partner to its clients.
From pitches and client planning sessions to award ceremonies and school drop-offs, Sycamore shares a week in his life.
Monday
I travel a fair distance to our offices in Leeds and Sheffield, so I usually work from home on a Monday. It gives me a bit of extra time in the day to prep the week and catch up with all the people I need to.
This week, however, it’s all change. I’m in the office today for the second of two client and commercial planning sessions ahead of the new financial year, so on the early train to Preston then onto Leeds. Despite the numerous issues with our rail industry, the benefits of being able to sit down with the laptop for a couple of hours first thing just about outweigh the risk of the train being cancelled.
The planning session is an intense all-day event, with about 20 client growth and commercial plans to cover. Fortunately, the team have done an amazing job of preparing and they all present their plans expertly to the agency exec. I feel very proud of the team at the end of the day and optimistic about the year ahead.
Tuesday
With Monday’s travel and all-day meeting, I’ve flipped my usual beginning of week routine to Tuesday. That means working from home and waking up with kids, getting them ready and dropping them at school and day care – the very best dose of perspective any parent ever needs ahead of the working day!
I like to check in with my team and discuss the priorities for the week ahead. This normally covers the big client meetings and how we are preparing, what’s on the new business agenda and getting a general sense check on how everyone is doing and any challenges we need to work through.
I have a weekly SLT session that has also been moved from Monday to today. My boss Catherine, our brilliant MD, runs the session and it’s a great way to work through the agency and department priorities with the senior team. We’ve become a pretty tight unit over the last six months and this week’s session is as productive as ever.
I spend the rest of the afternoon catching up on Monday’s emails and have a great meeting with our Data Science Director about a new product she’s working on and how we can use it to support clients. Then its kids pick up time and prepping for the next day.
Wednesday
It’s an exciting and full-on day planned today. We’re up for best integrated agency at this year’s Campaign Awards – honestly a massive honour and great result just to be nominated (but still hoping for a win!)
I’m at home in the morning, mainly running through some final pitch content ahead of a big meeting on Friday with a potential new client that we’re all very excited about. It’s a good run through, we are 95% there and the creative is in great shape. I find pitching extremely motivating and challenging in equal measure – to see the level of teamwork and quality of thinking that can be achieved in what is usually an incredibly short space of time is inspiring. But I do often question our industry and this approach to agency selection – the pressure and knock on implications of pitching can be extreme, at both a human and business level. Either way, I’m looking forward to sharing the work on Friday.
It’s back off to Preston late morning to catch the London train. I manage to get a bit done on the way down then it’s a quick turnaround at the hotel to squeeze a couple of meetings in and get ready for the event.
There are 10 of us who have travelled down and everyone at the table (and back at the agency) has worked extremely hard to get this nomination. It’s great to have the opportunity to celebrate and have a fun night. There’s no winners medal for Jaywing this year but I know we’ll be back, and in my mind, we definitely won the unofficial best agency on the dancefloor category!
Thursday
Slightly sore head this morning (!) but no time to dwell on it. We have one of our European clients in the Sheffield office today. They’ve come over from Brussels to spend the day with us so I’m heading up there on the train to catch up with the team.
I arrive just before lunch and the guys have had a great morning. We’ve been working on a brand strategy and new brand platform over the last three months and it’s great to see all the hard work and thinking brought to life. The client is happy with where we’ve landed, with great discussion and some strategic questions to work through but we’ve got a great platform on the table, and I can’t wait to see where the creative team take it.
Once a month on a Thursday we run an Agency “Proud” session. It’s a chance for everyone in the agency to share work and non-work achievements they are proud of. It’s a great session, there is brilliant work shared across all our core disciplines – Creative, Media & Data – and people from every team stand up to talk through it.
I head back to the northwest after the meeting, it’s been a big week with a lot of travel so it’s nice to see my family when I get home. I do a couple of final check-ins ahead the pitch and get prepped for a big end to the week.
Friday
Very early train back over to Leeds this morning, I don’t want to risk train issues before the big meeting.
The clients are coming in late morning so there are some last-minute checks and setting up the tech. We are the last of four agencies and it’s the end of a big week for everyone, so we’re trying to keep things high energy. We made the call to move the session out of the board room and into the Town Hall area of our Leeds office. It gives everyone a bit more space and feels more informal, I think it went down really well, a few of the clients’ made comments about the different setting being refreshing.
It’s a great meeting, everyone presents brilliantly, and the clients are engaged throughout. Lots of positive vibes at the end of the session – fingers crossed for some good news in the coming weeks.
I’m pretty much running on fumes Friday afternoon but get a chance to sit down with the Exec and finalise the revenue forecasts for next financial year. It’s been a challenging couple of years for the industry, but we have big ambitions for next year – maybe it’s Friday afternoon optimism but there’s a lot to be confident about as we push ahead.
After some final check ins with my team, it’s back onto the train and home for the weekend.
It’s the end of a massive week but overall, a pretty satisfying one.
