Ben Smith moderated a discussion between Howard Kosky and Lynsey Barry about the effectiveness of virtual versus in-office PR teams, with an emphasis on how both agency culture and leadership styles are impacted by physical location. 

Howard founded and ran Markettiers for 30 years and built the group to a £38m + turnover. Like most businesses it was office based until Covid and then developed a hybrid in office, virtual set up.

Lynsey Barry is CEO and founder at Five not 10, a B2B PR firm with 9 employees founded in 2021.

Barry, a proponent of remote-first, asserted that culture is behavior-driven and requires deliberate virtual leadership, while Kosky emphasized the value of an office as a central base for culture development, in-person talent coaching, and cultivating young talent's social skills, though both agreed that leadership is crucial irrespective of the physical setting. 

The speakers also explored the challenges of scaling agencies, the complexity of hybrid models, the importance of employee well-being, and how the office should be viewed as an investment rather than merely a cost.