This time, we sit down with Rhonda Hiatt, Global CEO of M+C Saatchi Consulting and CEO of Clear. From mowing lawns in the Midwest to helming a global consultancy and opening a restaurant on the side, Rhonda’s career is a masterclass in reinvention, resilience, and reading the cultural tea leaves. We talk navigating chaos, leading with empathy, and why clarity is the ultimate growth hack.

Our Favorite Stories

• Rhonda’s journey from Midwest entrepreneur to global CEO of M+C Saatchi Consulting.
• Starting a restaurant mid-career—and how it reshaped her view on brand marketing.
• The time a fake AI voice clone of her nearly tricked a colleague.

Big Moments from Doing the Work

• How embracing complexity has become her strategic superpower.
• The importance of cultural connection in modern brand identity.
• What she’s learned from working across massive legacy brands and DTC disruptors alike.

Career Advice We’ll Live With

• "Diversity of data” is the new creative edge.
• Embrace change, don’t fight it—it’s the only constant.
• Leading with clarity and humanity is how you weather every storm, from 2008 to AI deepfakes.

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In this episode of The Bad Podcast, An Advertising Podcast, we get inside the mind of Tom Suharto, Global Strategy Lead at Forsman & Bodenfors. From cutting his teeth in research to leading strategy on a global scale, Tom's career path is anything but linear—unless you count the 400-page data reports he once sifted through. We talk cultural codes, creative instincts, and why trusting your gut is the real killer app.

Our Favorite Stories

• Tom's journey from working in research to leading global strategy at Forsman & Bodenfors.
• Immersing himself in Mongolian drinking culture for a vodka brand campaign.
• The "Find Your Greatness" campaign for Nike during the Olympics and how it resonated differently in China.

Big Moments from Doing the Work

• Navigating cultural dynamics while working across Shanghai, Portland, and New York.
• Transitioning from data-driven research to trusting creative instincts in strategy.
• Leading Forsman's strategy community and curating global project teams.

Career Advice We'll Live With

• The value of getting out of your comfort zone and working abroad to gain cultural insight.
• Trusting your gut and learning to write creatively, not just accurately.
• Using AI as a tool for idea generation, but layering human instincts and creativity on top.

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Our Favorite Stories

• Erin’s unconventional path to advertising—starting with an English and film degree, moving to Chicago, and launching a scrappy startup before breaking into UX.
• The “hot cake” corporate training at McDonald’s, where new hires spend a full day working in a restaurant, and how it shaped her design perspective.
• How McDonald’s global headquarters offers a rotating international menu, giving employees and customers a taste of different cultures.

Big Moments from Doing the Work

• Moving from startups and agencies to massive brands like Walmart and McDonald’s, learning to design for “everyone.”
• The balance between clarity and cleverness in UX—how focusing on human behavior and needs leads to better design.
• The reality of global UX at McDonald’s—creating a digital standard that works across diverse cultures while allowing for local customization.
• The importance of field research and real-world observation in UX, from drive-thru experiences to kiosk interactions.

Career Advice We'll Live With

• Selling your ideas is just as important as having great ones—whether it’s convincing a team or educating leadership on UX value.
• Designing for inclusivity starts at the beginning, not as a late-stage checklist.
• Patience is key in big organizations—meaningful change happens over years, not weeks.
• A great UX designer is also a great communicator—storytelling and persuasion matter just as much as technical skills.
• The best design teams take risks on unconventional hires, keeping the door open for fresh perspectives.

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Our Favorite Stories:

• Hotboxing the next blockbuster idea: starting a career at the tail end of the "Mad Men" era in digital healthcare advertising. Working with Rich Norman, Todd learned how Allegra got its name. "An articulation, not of the problem statement, but of the relief".
• "Many times in my career, humans were reduced to numbers or broad statistics... not individualized and not humanized, and while that was the political ethos and mandate, that did not feel right to me." 
• If you are an 'Intrapraneur', you will be met with resistance. If you aren't... it may mean you were there at the right place / right time, or you aren't doing something right... and the latter is more pervasive. 
• Half the job description was written: "When you join, you'll write the other half" - I learned the hard way that they didn't know what success meant. Funding innovation efforts upfront because it gives you that "seed" money, to create an internal venture. You don't want to have to go back and beg for each dollar. You want to phase it out in tranches and show something in return for that." 
• Positive spike in American outlook of Pharmaceuticals since the outbreak of COVID-19 according to The Harris Poll, 2020. 

Big Moments from Doing the Work:

• Learning from trial and error: "I am a student of failure... in innovation you have to embrace it. It's only failure if you don't learn from it." 
• Organizational shift from being Top-down to Bottom-up: borrowing good ideas from regional teams and scaling them at the enterprise level – the idea of an internal organ transfer vs an external transplant: the latter is prone to rejection. 
• On having a Global leadership role: "when someone came from corporate... people would usually show me something that was a source of cultural pride." 
  • Whisked from airport to see protected artifacts in Prague
  • A night at the Museum of the Resistance in Warsaw
  • Ethnographic research: following the day in a life of key doctors in office and at home (US, Germany, France, & Italy)
  • Meeting a doctor at his home in Madrid. No furniture, only artwork. "I'm a doctor. I'm supposed to have artwork." Who we are supposed to be vs who he is. 
  • The power of wearing the White Coat: "it's like a cape and he projects this appearance because he believes it." - he lost a battle to the wind, by way of a plane crash, and since then he committed to his career where his patients can harness the wind itself. 

Career Advice We'll Live With:

• Identify functional, emotional, and social needs (of the customer) as the first step in every process. 
• Ishikawa (fishbone) diagram - documenting the multiple causes (i.e., stakeholders, methodologies, or technologies) for a singular event (i.e., bugs, consumer experiences, product defects) 
• Jobs to be Done model by Clayton Christensen - Todd held his tongue for our sake, but we know he really (REALLY) wanted to share the "Hire a Milkshake" anecdote :) 

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Happy New Year, we hope you've had a fantastic holiday filled with much deserved rest, good food, and even better company.

We're starting 2025 with strong with TBWA veteran-turned-indy CCO Chuck Monn.

Among many things, he takes us into the mind of an award-winning creative director who touched cultural pillars like the Olympics, Visa, and Apple. He leaves brands more memorable than he found them, and has shaped iconic work like 'Mac vs PC' and 'Shot on iPhone'.

Our top 5 moments:

"You're not making ads, you're making communication that helps you understand how an iPhone works." 

"The way it started having a life of its own, and expanding to mean how people see the world through Apple products, was such a powerful reminder of the importance of platforms and brands. Building something that people can play with and make bigger."

"These people would fly out to where their billboard was... there was one woman who had never been on a plane before who flew out to be in front of her billboard in Times Square... it was a heart-warming, lovely connection between the brand and the people who make it." 

"Between Chiat and MAL, I was between those two places for 25 years... after 15 years working on Apple, I just needed a break. I have two kids... I just needed for the first time to just be dad. That was really important." 

"My first job in Chiat I took off for like 7 hours because I was working on a pitch at 3 in the morning and started at Chiat at 9 the next day. 

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Our Favorite Stories

• Alec's journey as the "Photoshop kid" at Grey Entertainment, helping build the Batman movie's first website.
• His reflections on surviving the Web 1.0 era and the exciting chaos of startups in 1990s New York.
• Using virtual reality for healthcare. Talk about ahead of the curve! Alec tells us about a 1993 college paper he wrote at Columbia on VR as a treatment for schizophrenia.

Big Moments from Doing the Work

• Alec's transition from startups to healthcare advertising, driven by his desire for stability after his daughter’s birth.
• Leading engagement strategy at Area 23 and Neon, crafting human-centered storytelling for pharmaceutical clients.
• Exploring the potential of AI tools like MidJourney and Leonardo.ai for creating impactful healthcare narratives.

Career Advice We’ll Live With

• Embrace storytelling non-linearly; start with the compelling "hook" and let context follow.
• Use new technologies as creative extensions, not replacements, to enhance ideation and storytelling efficiency.
• Stay curious and connected: Participate in communities (like MidJourney’s Discord) and actively seek inspiration from creators and innovators.
• Balance passion with teaching—spread your enthusiasm to inspire and uplift others in your field.

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Our favorite stories: 

• From record label & photography studio to ad agency; shaping incredible brands like Lollapalooza and Pitchfork to now Kimberly-Clark and Patagonia
• Renting a $700/month, 2,000 sq ft industrial space to make band posters & album art, produce music, and photograph musicians. 
• Creating Someoddpilot at 25 - "the gusto, the sincerity, the sureness even though I had no idea what I was doing" 
• "I'm the kid that walked out of art school and wanted to keep that feel going... of critique, of discovery... that's the dream. That's why artists are artists." 
• The record label was still going but it wasn't working and making money, I considered it a failure. But looking back it was exactly what I should be doing, what I loved doing. 
• "I never wanted to web design, it was just a giant door for us to walk through in 1999." 
• Launching the Public Works gallery

Big moments from doing the work: 

• "I had shown artwork in galleries when I graduated college and thought that was the end all be all... once I had a chance to experience that, and contrast with band shows, and feel the palpable difference of what it was like to be in those environments, it got me thinking that there were other ways to apply my skills... the camaraderie... the art gang that can laugh and pal around and make work, and get excited about something..." 
• Making a better website for The Empty Bottle and charting a rebrand. T-shirts, flyers, and digital for $3,000 of bar tabs. 
• "Pitchfork were the only ones who got up five days a week and published 3 articles by 9am" - sending records to Pitchfork and getting an in with the intern up the street. "They do websites too!" 
• An age-old problem: "I have a legacy brand with a generation of users that treasure and love what we're doing but we need to modernize and bring it forward to the future, expand what it can be, mean something to a new consumer, but not lose the thread on the old" 

Career advice we'll live with: 

• "I've always been a Straight-A student that had a bad mouth... I've always felt  good about expressing very honestly and very vulnerably... there's something about cursing or speaking as yourself." 
• "You didn't know what you were doing... there's no course at that age to explain diplomatic or democratic creative decision making... "
• "I didn't know what graphic design was but I knew I needed to make this flyer." 
• On getting a foot in the door: "How do you get half your body stuck in the door screaming your head off. Even if you know someone, they don't always know." 
• "Game of Thrones is a great example of a creative property that should be for nerds only. By definition it should be for DnD nerds, but what ended up happening is that everyone in the world loved that show because it was so well done, and the story was so rich."
• "You aren't going to pull the wool over anyone's eyes... who you are and the mythology around the work you are doing... it's not going to come from any briefs or approaches, that's going to come from a badass dedication to the heart and soul of what this business is, and going out in the world and communicating it in a way that turns heads, and inspires the shit out of people." - making a friend for life. 

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Our favorite stories: 

• Mass media shaped by sight-sound imagery, inspired by watching a ton of TV and critiquing the commercials as much as watching the programming. Recalling jingles, surgery cartoons, GEICO ads...
• On trying research journalism - "something just wasn't clicking, it felt like it drained me of energy." 
• Part time restaurant job and appliance & repair parts marketing... the perfect recipe for becoming the future Head of Strategy at Sid Lee? JK - it helped with learning how to relate with people. (KEY SKILL) 

Big moments from doing the work: 

• Originally applied to VCU for copywriting, but was identified as a strategist. Found mentorship in Earl Cox, late CSO of The Martin Agency
• On trust and taste: critical ingredients for a successful collaboration between strategy and creative. "you have to figure out the references that connect with them... but do not be the Judge Judy in the room" 
• On working with younger creatives: "get them into the habit of explaining their rationale... it makes for more fruitful working relationships." 
• Bringing together a high-velocity team: hiring for the right skills, but also leaving room for individuals to surpass their own expectations for themselves. 
• "I like seeing people's faces" - Earl Cox was great at taking a room and working it... reading it and regurgitating it... 

Career advice we'll live with: 

• On imposter syndrome: "Find people who are going to be your advocates... if you have someone accomplished that thinks you can do XYZ, maybe you can!" 
• Jargon Monoxide creates a fall sense of competence... folks from non-traditional marketing backgrounds have these razor-sharp minds but don't have that marketing-ese... Cardi B is a brilliant marketer but she does NOT sound like the people I'm in meetings with
•  "I love a From > To" - the more honest you are with that, the more provocative... that is always a money maker... when you can capture the mood of the clients, in addition to their ambition... reshape it in a way that gets people excited to hear what you have to say.
• On setting a vision for success: "all strategy is to get people to take the time to align on where we're going"
• "An informed opinion delivered with conviction delivers hope." On helping people find their own 'lightbulb moment'. 
• "Rigidity is the pitfall of strategy... overconfidence, over complication, too 'inside baseball'... those are all off-ramps." 
• "If I don't understand this, there's no way the consumer will understand it."

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Our favorite stories: 

• Trained as an industrial designer (furniture or automotive) but later found advertising
• Global experience from Japan to France to The UK to NYC 
• Horizontal education style and curiosity led to scores of career pivots
• A lot of interviews, and because of the duality of my experiences, someone would tell me you're too much of this but not enough of this... Until I found a place that accepted me for me and service both sides of my experience: product and advertising - what they've done in the past hasn't worked and they are ready to try something new. 
• On Wells Fargo - multiple signs pointing to potential success; leadership, resources, talent scoping...

Big moments from doing the work: 

• Required reading: Banking on Joy
• Covid-inspired: "there is no real safety-net, so if you lose your job, you're on your own... the anxiety level is enormous." - The idea of avoiding banking in personal life leading to the the insight that, banks are big, people are small. 
• On researching Financial Services user journeys: looking at sports, dieting, cancer... where things are long and difficult, and easy to give up. 
• Helping consumers feel like banking is attainable...like they're in control... valuable, empowered, confident - all emotional things. 

Career advice we'll live with: 

• "In banking, people come from other banks so you're inherently different" - on confidence and knowing what you bring to the table - especially as an introvert 
• "I grew up in a very international background... school... you have to make friends quickly, you have to learn the set of rules of the space you're in..." 
• "For many years I tried to blend in and adjust to the environment, but there was a moment fairly recently that... I decided I didn't want to blend in anymore, this is me." 

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"If you got one foot in tomorrow and one foot in yesterday, then you're squattin' on today." - Brian's grandma

Our favorite stories: 

• 3x author, professor, and agency chief turned clinical therapist 
• Over 20 years in China leading perhaps the most storied industry-shaper J. Walter Thompson on accounts like Kraft, Nike, and Microsoft. 
• There was a lot of proud when you saw your work up there... there was a lot of social cache. Investment banking was a big thing and consulting was too, but there was no shame in saying "I went to a business school and went into advertising." 
• "There was never a CMO... the relationship between agency and client was taken very seriously. Agency reviews were meant to consolidate relationships instead of cracking open fissures that might be helping in reducing fees." 
• On moving to China: "You could tell very quickly who was going to thrive... I came in and was immediately moved by the aspirational sparkle in their eyes... the willingness to absorb information..." 

Big moments from doing the work: 

• "There was tremendous focus on strategy and creative as the center of gravity... Leo Burnett and JWT had review boards making sure the leadership of the agency was collectively endorsing what was going on. There was no question the decision making was not focused on media." 
• "I helped launch Lunchables... the marketing head and I were very good friends and I knew his family and we went to multiple football games... cookouts... that relationship was particularly warm but not unheard of at the time." 
• "Living in the lanes... not a high rise where the ex-pats were... once you learn the language (Chinese), it gives you insight into how the Chinese view their relationship between the individual and society and the cosmos..."

Career advice we'll live with: 

• People are very frightened about digital technology. The people who have command over the digital ecosystem are the new aspirational characters in the industry.
• Down-funnel: a shift in the center of gravity; those who could understand and could harness the power of data vs ideas. Ideas were left by the wayside. 
• "Clearly there are areas in communication communities that are still brand-centric. The question that I have is, whether people that are part of these part of these functions are ultimately going to scale the ladders of the power structure." 
• Ask yourself, where can I feel most at home? 
• The fundamentals of what a good insight is... what a good brand purpose is -- these are not being taught, in fact they are being slightly ridiculed. You fall back on brand guide books that are overly prescriptive. 

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