Hi, I'm Ross
I’ve spent the last two decades in leadership positions at some of the most dynamic, entrepreneurial and culturally impactful businesses in the creative industries.
In these roles, my point of difference has always been that I’m as fascinated by the theories and frameworks that enable commercial and organisational excellence as I am immersed in the organic, legitimate culture in which creativity thrives.
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As I’ve entered the second half of my career I have found my practice organically shifting from that of a leader to something much more akin to a practitioner-coach, bringing me closer to what truly lights up my day: raising up others as they embark on their own journeys in creativity and commerce.
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Ross Allmark
Founder-Practitioner, Creative Grid
Our Approach
A hybrid methodology for sustainable growth.
Our practice focuses on providing leaders, managers and teams with the capabilities they need to thrive at the intersection of creativity and commerce.
We do this by combining the collaborative, human-centred methodology of a coach with the data-driven insights of a consultant and the hard-won lessons of a seasoned business operations practitioner to deliver bespoke, transformative programs to creative businesses. The aim is to level up your business, leaving you and your organisation perfectly positioned to win.
There are three moments in a business’ journey when our capabilities are most valuable; when a business needs to tune out the noise and focus on what matters, when it’s found its groove and needs to scale, or when new challenges require it to adapt in order to thrive.
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Let's take a closer look at how we help you navigate those moments...
From Noise to Focus
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Noise
Business can be noisy, and creativity even noisier. Wildly competing priorities, diverging perspectives and ever-evolving visions are all part of the ride, but when the din becomes overwhelming, it’s easy to lose your way.
We create bespoke programs that will enable you to harness the frenetic energy of creativity and entrepreneurship to create an engine of value for your customers, consumers and clients.
Deploy your vision and values as a superpower, use that superpower to unlock new customers with needs that others can’t see and products and services others can’t deliver. Find that special value only your business can bring and focus your organisation by turbo-charging your leadership, empowering your people and mastering your processes.
Focus
Confident, consistent and in control, your business understands what it is, what it’s here to do and where it’s going.
From Challenge to Adaptation
Challenge
The only constant in business is change. Whether driven by competitors, customers, technology or macro-conditions way beyond our control we must adapt or inevitably decline.
We develop bespoke programs ranging from complete strategic overhauls to team-level transformation and technology implementations.
All change journeys begin with understanding where you are today, identifying the forces driving the change imperative and plotting a strategy that will allow you to master those forces before they master you.
But that is only half the story. Most change initiatives amount to little more than a slide deck, a couple of meetings and a mountain of good intentions. We help businesses build change mandates, manage stakeholders, execute change, drive adoption and create a culture of continuous improvement so that the next time change comes, they’re already out in front of it.
Adaptation
Rally the business behind ordered, intentional and lasting change that embeds a culture of resilience and continuous imporvement.
Hiring Us
We make it quick, clear and easy.
Our focus is on delivering value in a clear, time-bound and trackable manner. All our engagements follow a clear four-step approach to ensure that you know what you are getting, how much it will cost and the clear, measurable impact it will have on your business.
This process starts with a discovery call, followed by a structured formulation of the ambition, the challenge, the plan and how we will measure success. We then deliver this work, concluding with a formal handover of deliverables, a sharing of learnings and a measure of our performance versus KPIs.
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The format of each engagement varies upon your needs, but broadly speaking we have three ways of working with our clients...​​​
Engagement Types
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Develop
During a Develop engagement, we will work with you in a manner akin to a coach, working through a bespoke package of 1:1 or team sessions building towards a predetermined goal. The aim is to turbo-charge your capabilities, arming you with the skills, tools, frameworks and insights that will enable you to overcome challenges and seize opportunities.
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2
Discover & Design
You have a specific challenge or opportunity you wish to address but you don’t have the bandwidth or specialist knowledge in-house to tackle it - that’s where a Design & Discover engagement delivers value. Together we will set a scope of work and define the goal, then I will work with you and your team to couple your proprietary insights with specialist knowledge and industry best practices, providing you with a clear roadmap for success.
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Deliver
Deliver is where we roll my sleeves up and embed with your team, bringing my experience in business operations, transformation and technology to bear directly on the task at hand on a freelance or fractional basis.
Some areas where we can help...
01.
Organisational Strategy
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Product Innovation
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Business Operations Frameworks
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Business Process Design
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Design Thinking
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Agile Methodology
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Change Management
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Group Facilitation
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Systems Implementation
Program & Project Management
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