For some people, running a company is a lifelong ambition. For others, it’s the logical outcome of rising through the ranks. But what’s the career path to this role, and what does the job entail?
The blend of skills a Managing Director needs can come from different parts of the business and a wealth of life experience. Let’s look at some learnings from my journey, alongside the most exciting and challenging parts of the role.
There’s plenty of support out there for designers to progress their career. But a design studio is a business like any other. To achieve its aims and stay financially stable, it needs to be well run. In broad terms, that’s the job of the Managing Director, or MD.
The MD oversees the whole organisation and drives it forward: from the company vision, business growth and finances, to client relationships, production and the wellbeing of the team. The typical day is a mixture of calls to plan upcoming projects, internal meetings to check in on everyone, input into proposals and new business meetings.
Paint the big picture
As MD at Output, I’m responsible for setting the vision for the studio. Working closely with Johanna (Partner and Creative Director) and with input from the team, I think about what sort of studio we want to be, what we want to achieve over the next few years and how to get there.
This means defining the type of clients we want to work with, the team we need to do it and what ‘success’ looks like for us. After establishing this headline vision, I work closely with the leadership team, representing finance, production and marketing, to break it down into measurable goals.
Plan, measure and review
At Output, our year runs from April to March, in line with the UK’s tax period. The annual cycle involves planning sessions from January, to review the current year’s progress and forecast what we need to achieve financially for the upcoming one. For a business to remain healthy, it needs to achieve the right balance between incoming and outgoings, while making sure everyone feels motivated and not overworked.
These topline targets break down into the amount of new business we need to achieve, the scale of clients we want to win and how we’ll market the business to build our profile. Alongside that are targets for developing existing clients and the efficiency rates we’re aiming for to keep the right balance. With the leadership team, we can then work out how to grow the headcount to achieve those targets.