Most companies' hiring systems weren't designed for creative work. Internal recruiters don't usually have the creative industry expertise to evaluate tone, craft, or cultural fit. And creative directors end up stuck in approval processes that take weeks when they need someone tomorrow.

Steve Potestio has spent 20 years in creative staffing. He's watched companies build systems that make it harder to hire the right creative talent. In this episode, we break down why creative staffing breaks down, what gets lost in translation, and what creative leaders can actually do to get the flexibility they need.

Steve Potestio is the Managing Director of Harvester Talent, a creative staffing firm focused on direct-to-client relationships and deep creative industry expertise. Over 20 years in the industry, he's built and scaled multiple staffing companies and watched the staffing landscape evolve from direct hiring manager access to complex vendor management systems. He's seen firsthand how procurement-driven processes strip away the subjective evaluation that creative hiring requires, and he built Harvester Talent specifically to solve that problem by working directly with hiring managers who understand what creative talent actually needs.

• How to make the business case for staffing flexibility
• Why the best recruiters push back on job descriptions instead of just executing them
• Understanding potential over immediate fit: evaluating the gray area beyond resumes and job descriptions
• How to build relationships for future roles, not just immediate openings

• Take the free Creative Ops Assessment at www.infocusconsulting.net/creative-ops-assessment
• Connect with Jesse on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessekrinsky
• Have a creative ops challenge you're facing? Want to be a guest on the show? Reach out at jesse@infocusconsulting.net

RACIs are one of the most fundamental frameworks in creative operations, but most teams struggle to make them work. In this episode, creative ops leader Elissa Strell breaks down why RACIs fail and exactly how to implement them successfully.

Key Topics

• Why the definitions of Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed matter more than you might think
• Why creating a RACI in a vacuum guarantees failure
• What to do when your RACI loses traction
• Where to start if you're implementing your first RACI (hint: don't pick your biggest campaign)
• Why iteration matters more than getting it perfect the first time

About the Guest

Elissa Strell is a creative and marketing operations leader with extensive experience spanning both agency and in-house environments. She specializes in building the systems and structures that bring clarity to how creative work gets done, from defining roles and responsibilities to helping teams align on ownership, streamline decision-making, and operate more efficiently and strategically within the business.

Connect with Jesse:

• Take the free Creative Ops Assessment at www.infocusconsulting.net/creative-ops-assessment
• Connect with Jesse on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessekrinsky
• Have a creative ops challenge you're facing? Want to be a guest on the show? Reach out at jesse@infocusconsulting.net

Shannon Duncan, Chief of Staff for Marketing at DoorDash, explains how to build creative operations that scale with hyper-growth without becoming bureaucratic. She shares why understanding your team members comes before implementing any tool or process, how to use incremental changes to build trust while introducing new systems, and why internal creative studios need to stop being treated as free resources and start operating with “creative currency” that protects their capacity and positions their work as expertise.

Shannon Duncan is Chief of Staff for Marketing at DoorDash, where she previously built the company's creative operations from the ground up. She joined DoorDash in 2021 when the internal creative studio was just beginning to take shape - a few creatives, freelance project managers, no established processes - and transformed it into a strategic partner serving one of the most dominant players in food delivery. Before DoorDash, Shannon spent years in creative ops and project management at independent agencies, where she learned that the most important variable in creative operations is people…not tools or dashboards. Her people-first philosophy has shaped how she approaches everything from process changes to stakeholder management to building a culture where “1% better every day” is the standard.

• Why creative leaders need to earn team members’ and stakeholders’ trust before implementing new systems
• How to use the "1% better every day" philosophy to make incremental changes that stick without overwhelming teams
• Why in-house creative teams hit an "abuse state" when treated as free resources, and how to protect their capacity
• Why creative ops leaders need to understand business priorities beyond their own team to position their work strategically

• Take the free Creative Ops Assessment at www.infocusconsulting.net/creative-ops-assessment
• Connect with Jesse on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessekrinsky
• Have a creative ops challenge you're facing? Want to be a guest on the show? Reach out at jesse@infocusconsulting.net