The Inside Out Community

Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting
2026-09-03 13:30 - 14:30 (Europe/London) | https://theinsideout.community/event/ahead-of-the-curve-future-proofing-creative-teams/
Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting

Mastermind

The Inside Out® Pathway is both a diagnostic and professional development tool for all in-house creative leaders and their teams. It’s designed so that, for the first time, an in-house creative leader can benchmark themselves and their teams in a relevant way.

Date & Time:

Location:

Online

Type:

About the Event

As AI accelerates output, in-house creative teams risk being pulled further into reactive production, faster turnarounds, and churning out more “stuff” to keep up with the pace of everyone else in the market. However, the teams that thrive will be the ones that can move upstream, ask sharper questions, make better decisions, and experiment with confidence and without fear of fallout.

In this mastermind session, we are joined by Amale Ghalbouni, strategist, keynote speaker, executive coach and author of Experimental, to explore how in house creative leaders can build the conditions their teams need to stay relevant, resilient and strategically valuable in the era of AI.

Drawing on her insights and stories from her bestselling book, Amale will unpack the five ingredients teams need to navigate uncertainty and disruption well. The session will explore what it really takes to future-proof a creative team when the pace of change keeps accelerating, expectations keep shifting, and the pressure to prove value is growing.

Benefits of attending

Understand why future-proofing creative teams is not just a technology challenge, but a culture and leadership challenge.

Explore the role of connection, clarity, curiosity, courage and celebration in helping teams adapt and experiment well.

Learn how to spot the behaviours that keep creative teams stuck, cautious or reactive.

Discover practical ways to help your team move from AI anxiety to confident experimentation.

Feel inspired to build a more strategic, resilient and future-ready creative team.

Format

Our mastermind sessions are hosted on Zoom. The main part of the presentation will be recorded and added to our members’ learning hub. The last part of the session will be open to Q&A so you have the opportunity to ask your questions directly to Amale.

About our speaker

Amale Ghalbouni is a strategist, executive coach, keynote speaker and the founder of The Brick Coach. For almost two decades, she has worked across strategy, innovation and transformation, helping complex organisations navigate change and build more experimental cultures.

She has worked with brands including Visa, Microsoft, Levi’s, UBS, Ralph Lauren, Generali, Springer Nature, Omnicom, RELX, LSE, Publicis Groupe and the BBC. Her work focuses on helping leaders and teams turn uncertainty into action through clearer thinking, stronger collaboration and bolder experimentation.

Amale is the author of Experimental, a practical field guide for leaders who want to fear less, take action sooner, and build cultures where people feel able to test, learn and adapt.

Where and when

Online via Zoom

Thursday 3rd September

13:30 BST, 14:30 CEST, 08:30 EDT

Ideal if you’re logging in from: UK, Europe, the Middle East, or India

Cost

Free to Visionary Leader and Future Leader members

Booking is essential.

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September 3

Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting

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(13:30BST / 14:30 CEST) The big question for creative leaders is not just how to use AI, it’s how to future-proof the…

View Details at Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting on September 3

September 9

Building a Brand World: Inside Gymshark's Creative Vision

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Building a Brand World: Inside Gymshark's Creative Vision
2026-09-09 12:30 - 13:30
Building a Brand World: Inside Gymshark’s Creative Vision

Mastermind

The Inside Out® Pathway is both a diagnostic and professional development tool for all in-house creative leaders and their teams. It’s designed so that, for the first time, an in-house creative leader can benchmark themselves and their teams in a relevant way.

Date & Time:

Location:

Online

Type:

About the Event

What does it take to build a brand that feels coherent, recognisable and culturally relevant over time, not just campaign to campaign?

For in-house creative leaders, the challenge isn’t just making great work. It’s about creating the clarity, systems and creative standards that allow a brand to show up consistently across every touchpoint, and in a way that allows the brand to keep evolving without losing it’s identity.

During this virtual Inside Out Mastermind, we will be joined by James Chorley, Brand Creative Director at Gymshark, who will share how his team approaches building a globally recognisable brand through creative direction, systems and execution.

This session will cover:

Global expression: Building consistency and creative clarity across channels, markets and teams

Creative direction at scale: Creating alignment across internal teams, partners and collaborators

Designing brand worlds, not just campaigns: Connecting strategy, culture and execution into a single coherent vision

Raising creative standards: Maintaining quality and consistency at scale

From reactive to intentional: How seasonal direction evolved from responding to the calendar to shaping clearer brand narratives

AI in creative practice: Where it adds value, where judgement still matters, and how teams are adapting

What you’ll take away:

Gain a clearer understanding of how strong brands are built through consistency, clarity and creative direction over time

Learn how to create coherence across creative touchpoints at scale

See how creative ambition can be sustained through strong direction, systems and execution

Format

This session is part of the Inside Out Mastermind series — bringing in-house creative leaders together to go deeper on the challenges and opportunities that define the job.

Our mastermind sessions are hosted on Zoom. The main part of the presentation will be recorded and added to our members’ learning hub. The last part of the session will be open to Q&A so you have the opportunity to ask your questions directly to James.

About our speaker

James is Brand Creative Director at Gymshark, responsible for how the brand is defined, expressed and experienced globally, across brand foundations, campaigns, experiences and physical spaces.

With over 20 years’ experience spanning brand strategy, communications and creative direction, he has worked with brands including Nike, TAG Heuer, BBC and Xbox.Known for bringing clarity to complex problems, James connects strategy, culture and creative execution into coherent direction — and builds the conditions that allow teams to do their most ambitious work.

Where and when

Online via Zoom

Wednesday 9th September 2026

12.30PM BST / 13:30 CEST

Ideal if you’re logging in from: UK, Europe, the Middle East, or India

Cost

Exclusive to Visionary Leaders and Future Leaders

Booking is essential.

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September 3

Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting

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(13:30BST / 14:30 CEST) The big question for creative leaders is not just how to use AI, it’s how to future-proof the…

View Details at Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting on September 3

September 9

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View Details at Building a Brand World: Inside Gymshark's Creative Vision on September 9

The Stakeholder Whisperer
2026-10-14 16:00 - 17:00 | https://theinsideout.community/event/the-stakeholder-whisperer/
The Stakeholder Whisperer

Mastermind

The Inside Out® Pathway is both a diagnostic and professional development tool for all in-house creative leaders and their teams. It’s designed so that, for the first time, an in-house creative leader can benchmark themselves and their teams in a relevant way.

Date & Time:

Location:

Online

Type:

About the Event

Your stakeholders don’t know what they need. Not really.

What they ask for is shaped by habit, assumption, and the limits of what they think is possible. Your job isn’t just to deliver the brief, it’s to decode it.

In this one-hour Mastermind, author, educator, and information designer Bill Shander shares a practical framework for getting from what people ask for to what they actually need.

Bill will show you how to have smarter conversations with clients, colleagues and stakeholders, on what they ask for and how they ask for it, and how to deliver products and services that meet those needs.

In this session Bill will cover:

Why stakeholder whispering is a skill every in-house creative needs

How to tap into a user-experience and curiosity mindset

How? The Socratic Method

How? The Dance of the Six Ws

Why it doesn’t always work, but how to increase the odds

Whether you’re navigating complex client relationships, managing up, or trying to get more meaningful briefs, this session will change how you listen to, and engage with, stakeholders.

Who is this for?

This Masterclass is for in-house creative leaders who want to play a more strategic role, improve collaboration and stakeholder management.

About our speaker

Bill Shander is an author, educator, and information designer, helping clients turn their data into compelling visual and often interactive experiences. He teaches data storytelling, information design, and data visualization on LinkedIn Learning (2M+ learners reached!), and in workshops around the world. He is a keynote speaker and has lectured for graduate and undergraduate students and staff at Harvard, Northeastern, Stanford, and more. His first book, Stakeholder Whispering, was published by Wiley in 2025.

Where and when

Online via Zoom

14 October 2026

16:00 BST / 17:00 CEST / 12:00 EDT

Ideal if you’re logging in from: UK, Europe, North America

Cost

Free to Visionary Leader and Future Leader members

Booking is essential.

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September 3

Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting

Mastermind

(13:30BST / 14:30 CEST) The big question for creative leaders is not just how to use AI, it’s how to future-proof the…

View Details at Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting on September 3

September 9

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Mastermind

(12.30PM BST / 13:30 CEST) What does it take to build a brand that feels coherent, recognisable and culturally relevant…

View Details at Building a Brand World: Inside Gymshark's Creative Vision on September 9

When Ambition Outgrows Infrastructure
2026-10-29 12:00 | https://theinsideout.community/event/ambition-outgrows-infrastructure/
When Ambition Outgrows Infrastructure:

The Architecture of Strategic Creative Leadership

Mastermind

The Inside Out® Pathway is both a diagnostic and professional development tool for all in-house creative leaders and their teams. It’s designed so that, for the first time, an in-house creative leader can benchmark themselves and their teams in a relevant way.

Date & Time:

Location:

Online

Type:

About the Event

There’s a pattern showing up across in-house creative teams. Most in-house creative teams don’t start life as strategic partners. They start as production engines, built for speed, efficiency and cost control. And for a while, that works.

But over time, something shifts. Trust grows. The work becomes more complex. The organisation begins to expect bigger thinking, stronger creative ownership, visible leadership impact. The ambition evolves, but the structure often doesn’t.

That gap between rising expectations and unchanged infrastructure is where many in-house creative leaders find themselves right now. Caught between what the business wants from them and what the operating model actually allows. Strategic thinking squeezed out by delivery pressure. Business is becoming the dominant signal of value. Firefighting dressed up as leadership.

This isn’t a personal failing. It’s a predictable organisational pattern.In this Inside Out Virtual Mastermind, we are joined by Gareth Chilton, Founder of ManMachine, to explore what’s really driving this compression and what it actually takes to build the conditions for strategic creative leadership to thrive.

The central idea is this: strategic creative leadership is not simply a matter of talent or influence. It is the product of architecture. If the ambition of the organisation evolves, the operating model must evolve with it, otherwise even the strongest leaders will find themselves pulled back into the weeds.

Gareth will cover:

How in-house creative teams evolve from production engines to strategic functions and where the tension starts

The compression effect: what it feels like to be caught between rising expectations and operational constraints

The three structural drivers behind that compression: operating model lag, misalignment between ambition and infrastructure, and accountability without mandate

The common symptoms, inability to say no, constant firefighting, lack of protected strategic time, and why they’re structural, not personal

The Conditions that need to exist for creative leadership to thrive

Where and when

Online via Zoom

29 October 2026

12.30 GMT / 13:30 CET

Ideal if you’re logging in from: UK, Europe, the Middle East, or India

Cost

Free to Visionary Leaders and Future Leaders

Booking is essential.

What you’ll take away

Learn the three structural drivers of creative compression and how to diagnose them in your own organisation

Understand what conditions need to be in place for strategic creative leadership to genuinely flourish

Hear a practical framework for thinking about operating model change

Be inspired to shift the conversation in your organisation from individual performance to system design

Format

This session is part of the Inside Out Mastermind series — bringing in-house creative leaders together to go deeper on the challenges and opportunities that define the job.

About our speaker

Gareth Chilton is the founder of ManMachine, a multidisciplinary consulting team in the MarTech and AdOps space.

With over 20 years’ experience leading digital and operational transformations from both agency and client side, including work with Unilever, Reckitt, Coca-Cola and BAT — Gareth brings a systems-level perspective to the challenges facing in-house creative leaders.

Where others arrive with a deck and leave teams to figure it out, ManMachine works collaboratively inside the operation redesigning workflows, clarifying operating models, and configuring MarTech, AI and automation for real-world constraints. The goal: helping organisations scale creative output without endlessly adding tools and headcount.

He now works with CMOs, Creative Directors and marketing leaders to redesign their operations for production at scale, built on systems thinking, workflow design and governed processes rather than one-off fixes.

He’s also a valued Advisor to the Inside Out Community.

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View Details at "The tsunami and the team" – Burnout and overwork in in-house creative teams on July 15

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View Details at The Exchange – 5th August 2026 on August 5

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September 3

Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting

Mastermind

(13:30BST / 14:30 CEST) The big question for creative leaders is not just how to use AI, it’s how to future-proof the…

View Details at Ahead of the Curve: Future-Proofing Creative Teams When Everything Keeps Shifting on September 3

September 9

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Mastermind

(12.30PM BST / 13:30 CEST) What does it take to build a brand that feels coherent, recognisable and culturally relevant…

View Details at Building a Brand World: Inside Gymshark's Creative Vision on September 9
