E66:Chris Hirst on Leadership

I first met Chris Hirst when he became Global chief executive at Havas Creative Network, which meant he was my boss while I worked at Cake the havas sport and entertainment agency in the network’s kings cross village in London. He was previously CEO at Grey London and is routinely ranked one of the industry's most influential people, and in 2018 he published a book called No Bullshit Leadership which has since picked up awards and good reviews across the business pages.We talk about how he looks at the job of leadership and the role of corporate culture at advertising and creative agencies. having written a leadership book myself I was interested in how he separates the hype that tends to gather around prominent sport and business leaders and the reality of their impact on team or corporate performance.We talk about culture in advertising and marketing agencies, how that survives or not after acquisition and his views on sport and sponsorship within the agency networks.As you’ll hear he’s a straightforward type of bloke who doesn’t dodge questions or give bullshit PR responses, which is good given the title of his book.Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.