Creative at Heart, Leader by Choice

You started as a graphic designer and creative director before moving into leadership. How does that foundation still shape the way you work today?

For a long time, I was very portfolio-driven. That was just how the industry worked. You were hired based on your book, and it creates this ego for designers where you're very focused on what you personally created and what it does for your career. I fully drank that Kool-Aid. I wanted the things that would make my work look cool, take me to new places, and open new doors.

Over time, that started to feel off for me personally. I got really interested in the collaborative side of things, in recognizing everyone who went into the work alongside me. The photographer, the fellow directors, the stylists, the producers, the retouchers, etc... Those relationships started to matter more than my individual output.

Then I got my first real leadership role in California, with direct reports, and that changed everything. The first time one of my team members had a big win, I was more excited about it than I had ever been about any wins of my own. Their win became my win. I remember thinking, “Ohhhhh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.”

The design background still matters, because I genuinely wouldn't know how to help someone if I hadn't done the job myself. The ambition just shifted for me. Other people's growth became the thing I cared about most. Their success became far more important than my own portfolio.  

What advice do you have for other creatives interested in following a leadership path?

I also have to be honest that I was a very nosy designer in my early years. To a fault, honestly. I wanted to know the data, the why, etc... People sometimes would give me that “why are you in my business? This isn't your swim lane” kind of look. But squeaky as I was, I believe to this day in the importance of cross-functional collaboration, and that better understanding what other partners know will only make the work stronger!

I’ve come to find that a lot of creatives are wired that way. We are DEEPLY curious creatures and it’s really important to use that curiosity to guide you. For me, it helped me form a love for the strategic side of things and understand marketing in a way that “staying in my designer lane” maybe wouldn’t have led to. So my advice is this ... Don't let the boundaries of your job description set your limitations in knowledge. Use that creative curiosity to be a sponge and learn from others within your team and outside of it. Maybe just find a better way than I did to make your intentions and perceptions match!

You spent years at major brands across the country before coming back to Fort Wayne. What were you looking for, and what did you find here?

When we left Fort Wayne, I bawled my eyes out. I remember sitting on the couch our last night in the house just sobbing, because I was genuinely convinced we were never coming back. Fort Wayne is not a big city, and I had big ambitions, and I thought those two things just weren't compatible.

So, I went. Baltimore, San Francisco, and Rochester. And I learned a ton. And every time we came back to visit, because we still had family here, the city felt different. There was more happening downtown and more energy overall. It kept surprising us!

Then Sue reached out and asked if I knew anyone who might be interested in being her successor. I genuinely didn't realize she was talking about me! When she followed up and made it clear she was, it was just this moment of wow. Fort Wayne was suddenly back on the table in a way I never imagined.

What I was really looking for, and this became clearer the further along I got in my career, was a culture where the values were actually lived. I had worked places where the values looked great on paper, but the reality was different. You’d hear how things were “unofficially” and I’ve learned that a disconnect like that can be a warning sign for burnout. At Britton, you can see and feel our values in how we work every day. Respect is an expectation, not just a hope.

The Meg who left ten years ago wasn't ready for this job. She needed to go do all of that first. So, I'm genuinely glad I went. I'm also glad to be wrong about what was possible here in Fort Wayne.

What does Britton's culture actually feel like from the inside?

Honestly? It's highly unusual, and I mean that as a true compliment.

A lot of places put their values on a wall and don't actually live them. They might not even realize they're not living them. What's different here is that the values aren't aspirational. They're operational. If something's off, we address it, and that expectation is real.

What the team feels, I think, is genuine respect. Their voice matters and we think about how decisions affect them before we make them. We think about mental capacity. We think about whether taking on a piece of work puts someone in a position they'd be uncomfortable in. And we use it as a true guide in the hiring process — we have a “no jerks rule” and we take that pretty seriously because if you can’t be respectful to your teammates, Britton isn’t the right place for you. Our values truly shape the choices we make every day.

Clients feel it too, just differently. We treat them as real partners. We're not experts who just roll in and tell you what to think. We take time to actually understand what's going on. People can tell the difference between being genuinely seen and being processed. We're in the business of the former.

You describe yourself as values-driven and people-first. What does that look like in practice when you're leading a creative agency?

It means putting others' needs before my own. Not just me personally, but as an agency. Our team comes first, full stop. If our people are genuinely cared for, everything else follows. We are nobody without them.

That shows up in a lot of ways: which clients we take on, how we think about growth, whether we're protecting people's capacity or just piling things on. We don't only ask, "Can we win this work?" We ask what it means for the people who'll actually do it.

We've also been really intentional about building what I think of as an employee-led company. We're not employee-owned, and that’s okay, but we can still be employee-led. Our steering committee exists so that when we're making big decisions, the right voices are in the room, either directly or through someone who represents them.

The AI Governance Committee is a good recent example. I'm not a top AI expert and I'm not going to pretend to be. Getting smarter people into that conversation isn't a weakness — it's just how you solve hard problems well. Also, it means I get to benefit from people who know more than I do about it.

I had a manager once who told me: when you grow, I grow. He gave me a runway instead of a leash, and it changed how I thought about leadership entirely. He wasn’t afraid of my ambition and knew that if I leveled up at any time, that just helped the whole. That's the energy I want to bring here because pretending I always have to be the expert, to always have the answer, gets us nowhere we want to be. 

Where are you taking the agency, and what do you want Britton to be known for?

Creatively, I want the world to know what has always been true here: we don't just make beautiful things. We make beautiful things that work, that move business, that are measurable. That's not a new direction. It's a truth we've always had, and we're going to say it louder.

There's also something structural I'm genuinely excited about. Our research and strategy capability has always been deep. For a while, it lived under a sub-brand called [B]right, and I understand why that decision was made. There was a moment of time where a design agency that could also conduct market research felt like a mismatch. You had to separate the "super smart" from the "super creative" for anyone to take you seriously in either space.

We're done with that framing. Why can't we do stunningly beautiful design and also be deeply data-driven? Why can't women be analysts and strategists and creative directors all at once? The sub-brand was a workaround for a bias that never should have existed. We're reclaiming research and strategy as a full Britton strength. It belongs to us. It always did.

More broadly, I want us to be a model for other agencies. Our values have become our operating system, and I want that to be such a clear part of our reputation that people feel it before we ever explain it. While we’re at it, let’s throw open the doors and let people see what's actually happening here. We're in the 4% of women-led agencies, and that number has to grow. And as I’ve mentioned, we’re running the business in a very human, respect-driven way that I’d love others to learn from. There's too much gatekeeping in this industry, and it serves no one. We all rise in the tide together.

What would you like to be known for as the leader of Britton?

When people ask me about my vision, I'll be honest that it used to make me a bit uncomfortable. I think that's because I've had a front-row seat to what vision can look like when it goes wrong.

I've watched leaders walk into companies and flip the tables — bulldozing what was already beautiful, usually the culture, and leaving the team in shambles. And looking back, even at places I haven't personally worked, you can almost pinpoint those moments in a brand's history to one person, one decision, or one season of unlived values. It's devastating and nine times out of ten, it was never really about vision when you get down to it. It was about someone wanting to make their mark — ego if you will.

So, I've spent a lot of time sitting with what I actually want to be known for. And what I keep coming back to is: I want the opposite of that. I don’t want to dismantle anything in the name of “new”.

Britton has become a place where people want to come to work and that doesn't happen by accident. It happens because this company has taken care of its people, made them feel seen and respected and valued. That is rare and worth protecting.

I want to be known as a steward leader. A steward of the heart of Britton — the culture, the empathy, the empowerment, the people. I want to protect what's already here and make it so strong that it outlasts me.

What does creativity look like for you when you're not at work?

My instinct is to tell you I watercolor, I do printmaking, I've been working on a portrait of my dog for approximately three years because I never have time to finish it. All of that is true.

Really, though, reading is probably my most consistent creative practice.

You can't keep producing creative work if you're not giving your brain time to reset. Reading does that for me in a way that could be considered creative maintenance. It lets my mind wander outside of my normal creative scope and allows me to come back with more energy and focus. And sometimes with some really cool new words. HA! It's really a hobby that takes care of what powers my creativity and makes that creativity possible.

The dog portrait will get finished eventually. Probably.

Meg Tiffany is the President and Chief Creative Officer of Britton Marketing & Design Group. Connect with her on LinkedIn.