Episode 8: The Journey from Social Work to Agency Leadership with Shelly Ragland

Burnout looks different when you’re the person everyone relies on to keep the work moving. In this episode, Shelly Ragland shares how she built a career in agency operations by trusting transferable skills, staying brutally honest, and learning when to bend without breaking.Katie McAndrews and Shelly talk through her path from social work to advertising, the early days of scheduling ads and managing production by hand, and the moment she realized she was built for project management. Shelly also opens up about the values that shaped her, the role lifelong friendships played in her growth, and why she believes stability, self-awareness, and showing up matter more than having the “perfect” plan.They also get into burnout, boundaries, and what it really takes to thrive in fast-moving agency life without losing yourself in the process.