Today we’d like to introduce you to Blair Brady
Blair, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Today, I am the proud Co-Founder and CEO with WITH, a brand consultancy. We are a purposely built independent agency of senior-level interdisciplinary strategists, designers and marketers serving a diverse roster of some of the most admired and iconic brands.
But my back story is atypical, maybe even meandering.
I was born on Amelia Island surrounded by marshes, lagoons, largely untouched beaches and sprawling oak trees covered in Spanish moss. As an adult, I’m certain that my appreciation for and proclivity to creative things came from my core experiences there as a child. The energy there was curious – easy but vibrant. There was always something or somewhere new to explore…a new game to make up….
As the daughter of a golf pro father and entrepreneur mother, I unexpectedly took to the arts via classical ballet at an early age.
In my youth, I attended a boarding school for classical ballet and attended several Summer Intensives including Boston Ballet and The Rock School of Pennsylvania Ballet
After high school, I danced in Richmond Ballet’s Trainee program (arguably my first “career”) before hanging up the pointe shoes and going to college at Florida State University.
After a Double Major in Political Science and Mass Communications. Immediately after college, I found myself stepping into my first “grown up” job at a marketing agency in Atlanta. An important aside – I didn’t actually step into this role, more like I forced myself in. I actually interned for the agency the summer before my final semester. During that final semester, I would drive up to Atlanta from Tallahassee on Fridays to “stop by” the agency and share some work I’d been doing as a continuation from my internship while also reminding them my graduation date was looming and that I was ready to come to work full-time immediately. I guess my persistence prevailed. After I graduated, I officially entered agency life and never looked back. Several years later, as an agency owner of 12+ years, I attribute my resilience, discipline and independent thinking to my youth and early career. Those characteristics combined with faith, incredible mentors and people willing to take a chance on me is the recipe for who I am today.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
As an entrepreneur in the creative industry, obstacles abound. I can look back and see obstacles from the early days of our firm when I used to give myself daily pep talks in the shower, to navigating high-level corporate politics for our executive client leaders today.
Two times that stand out to many business owners in my industry: the pandemic and the emergence of AI.
First, the pandemic. For us like many, we had closed down the office and were navigating a remote working environment. For weeks, we did not know where a lot of our client projects stood or if they were even moving forward. One thing that commonly comes out of steep obstacles is the opportunity (and necessity) to look at things differently. During this harshly trying time of the pandemic, I adopted the phrase: “What needs to happen eventually should be handled immediately.” During that time, it meant making some difficult staffing decisions, personally absorbing cost for the agency, and adopting new ways of working that put our staff through the paces. Though these things weren’t comfortable, they were necessary. And we saw a brighter horizon on the other side because of them.
I learned that so often in smoother times, we can overlook the things that aren’t working under the surface – because they aren’t magnifying an obstacle for us. We can get by. But, in challenging times, those things become louder and steeper – undeniable. I’m often reminding myself to make the difficult decisions and fail fast. Because the sooner you remove those barriers, the sooner you can move beyond them.
For the second obstacle, AI, this is a potential threat that I am proud of WITH’s ability to mitigate quite elegantly. We repositioned ourselves as a Brand Consultancy just ahead of the wave of AI. Much of the creative industry has been commoditized and some parts even threatened by obsolescence because of the AI advancements – particularly in production. However, Strategy, Design, Narrative and Change Management require humanity and original thought. Repositioning to embrace the things that are inherently human, things our clients need more than ever, and things that we uniquely deliver with excellence was paramount.
When we repositioned ourselves it also came with a new Visual Identity and Narrative. We chose to use our process that we use for clients on ourselves. And the result was exactly right. It felt like the agency we’d been but also the agency we were growing to become. It fit us in a way we hadn’t articulated before.
This particular obstacle coincided with the opportunity to transform – and we met that opportunity valiantly.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
I prefer to talk about my career not in business constructs, but in human form. When it comes to my working career, 3 themes consistently show up:
Rethink the Conventional
The 3 C’s of People: Connection, Care, Champion
There is no shortcut for discipline and endurance
Rethink the Conventional:
At 23, working in corporate marketing on a major account, I was eager to prove myself. I began scrutinizing our industry’s practices and quickly stirred things up within my team. This led me to business development, where I learned the power of building genuine, unconventional connections.
When we founded WITH in 2012, we deliberately chose to deviate from convention. Instead of a formal business plan, we started with a belief: that working together is human. We opted for a relationship-first approach, learning through experimentation rather than following the typical paths we’d experienced in our careers prior. This unorthodox approach was exactly right for us, revealing that true growth comes from challenging the norm and embracing the human side of business.
The 3 C’s of People: Connection, Care, Champion
We are all connected – but it takes intention and care to uncover how and why.
I like to call it finding my people.
First is Connection. This is an active practice of navigating your people to find new ones – ones that challenge you and make you better. Be intentionally generous – aka: choose wisely but give freely to your people.
Next is Care. This one is simple, but not easy (in our transactional world). Care for those you choose to connect with genuinely. That’s it.
Last is Champion. Say your people’s names in rooms they aren’t in but should be. Celebrate their wins and hold space in their valleys.
When you find your people, the value exchange is natural. You want to help them and they want to help you. You find yourself saying their names in rooms and often hearing the words “you should meet so and so” coming out of your mouth because you want their connections to grow and the value to continue.
I was fortunate enough to find one of my people early in my career – in my 20s. Jamie Sims, my Co-Founder, business partner, and friend. Because of that shared value and desire to create something, WITH was born. As we built our agency, we found our people in our clients we serve, the talent we hire and those who advocate for us. We do this through small private speaker series, small group dinners, and countless introductions between people we think should know each other. And all of those actions are entirely non-transactional. They are investments in the faith that value will be created as a result.
I can route every client to a connection and champion story. We do business with some of the most admired brands out there – The Coca-Cola Company, Delta Air Lines, Southern Company, Aaron’s Rent To Own, and Pacific Gas & Electric. Each of these brands have a human behind them that we invest in a relationship with constantly. One of our metrics of success is when our clients get promoted. When they win, we win.
There is no shortcut for discipline and endurance
Our world celebrates shortcuts and hacks. But, in my experience, success is built overtime not overnight. The “big idea” or “new disruptive innovation” is a fool’s errand. Sustained success is built in the quiet moments. In the things we do every day, not the one thing we tried one time. Success is built in each habitual daily action. Those must be aligned to a goal. That goal can (and should) be bold and audacious, but the way there is small and repetitive.
Reinvention isn’t easy. Transformation takes discipline and endurance. But, for us, and today’s modern businesses, it is essential to success in our ever changing world.
What makes you happy?
My family is just the best. My husband, my person, Art is someone who has unending belief in me. He challenges me and also makes me laugh so hard I snort. It is my hope that I live up to the person he sees in me. My children are so much – Lily Mack, Willie and Harben – they have opened my eyes up to see things in ways that I never would have on my own. They are the greatest challenge with the richest reward.
The Uniters at WITH who work alongside me every day and indulge my wild ideas and create the most thoughtful work in our walls at the agency.
Outside of all the people-things…I love music (my dad calls me a professional concert attendee), gardening (my kids call our garden my other child), documentary films (aka: my love language) and being outside.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://with.agency
- Instagram: blairbradyatl
