ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN · A $50B GLOBAL BRAND’S SOCIAL STUDIO
How do 70+ people across four different agencies become one team?
One account had inherited people from four agencies. The work still arrived through four operating systems.
THE PROBLEM
Four agencies, one account, and no real integration — each brand sat with a single agency, running on that agency’s own operating system.
THE MOVE
Integrate the teams themselves: mixed-agency squads where each brand’s work ships, and chapters holding every craft to one standard across all four.
THE RECEIPT
Two homes for every person — a squad where the work ships, a chapter where the craft is held — and the first portfolio-wide view of who was working on what.
ROLE
Social Capability Lead, North America (Managing Director) · Agency-side (employer named on request)
REMIT
Led a 70+ person integrated team across four agencies — strategy, creative, community, production, intelligence & analytics, and account & ops.
DIRECT CONTRIBUTION
Structural diagnosis · Leadership model · Team architecture · Cross-agency rate framework · Scenario planning
WHAT THE FULL CASE ADDS
The six-step sequence from week-one diagnosis to three costed structures, the roster audit that found the retention problem was structural rather than personal, the decision-rights framework that let equivalent roles be compared across four different agency payrolls, and what happened to the brand that was days from being pulled.
Client work isn’t public by default. The full case is shared on request, as a professional courtesy. No team identities, rates, or internal budgets appear in any version.