Ever been hired to a strategy or account planning job only to arrive in the company and they don't know what it is, they aren't sure they want it, and they make you justify your existence every day?

Ilana Bryant was one of two American planners in London in the 1990s. Read that again. It's not the premise of your next Netflix binge-watch but it could be.

Ilana finished her postgraduate studies in the UK. She studied law at Oxford. Then she stayed on as an account planner. Not only were there few women in the agencies in which she worked, there were few Americans in the London advertising industry at all, let alone... well, hardly any American women in planning in London at the time.

Ilana has worked with some prolific creative leaders. She's worked at BBH, Lowe Lintas, and HHCL. She was the CSO of Strawberry Frog for 5 years in New York.  

So we discuss the differences between planning in the UK and the USA and how a planner can prove their value in a country–I mean, "agency"–that isn't sure what they are.

You can find Ilana in her company Special Forces here: https://specialforcesny.com/projects 

P.S. Some of my questions don't quite make sense in the second half of this. It happens. I was excited.

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Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com