Leading Questions with Nadine Young – Spark Foundry
Leading Questions
Spark Foundry’s CEO, Nadine Young is in the hot seat for our probing and quick-fire Leading Questions.
Nadine Young took the top job at Spark Foundry in June 2025, moving across Publicis Groupe after five years as CEO of sister agency Starcom.
Whilst at Starcom, the agency was named Agency of the Year at the 2023 Media Week Awards and featured on The Sunday Times Best Places to Work list, while Young herself was named Media Agency Leader of the Year by The Media Leader in 2023.
Before joining Publicis, she spent nine years in New York, first at Mindshare and then as chief strategy officer at Vizeum.
Leadership
What principles guide your leadership approach?
I’ve never had a list of leadership principles pinned to the wall, as my approach is much simpler than that.
I remember the people who inspired me as I was coming up through the industry, as well as the people who knocked my confidence. I then work hard to emulate the first group and avoid becoming the second. Most of us remember how leaders made us feel long after we’ve forgotten what they actually said, so for me it’s about leading with care, empathy and trust to make people feel seen and supported.
How do you define success as a leader in today’s media landscape?
Success isn’t about having all the answers. I think that’s impossible at the pace our industry is changing. I see success as helping people feel excited by the change happening around us rather than frightened of it. If you can create an environment where people are curious, adaptable and eager to embrace what’s next, you’ve done something right.
People and Culture
What’s your approach to developing future leaders within your organisation?
I really believe that people build confidence when they’re trusted with things that feel slightly too big for them. Give them the support they need and let them stretch. That’s how you make future leaders.
At the same time, we need to ensure management isn’t confused with leadership. Management is about directing people, whereas leadership is about creating the conditions for them to thrive.
Current leaders have a job to push talented people beyond what they think they’re capable of, support them properly when they get there, and then make sure they’re visible. I’ve seen some of the best leadership happen when someone is advocated for in a room they’re not in.
How do you handle failure, both personally and within your teams?
I don’t love the word failure because, as long as you’ve learned something, I don’t think you’ve really failed.
Some of my toughest moments have been losing pitches where teams have poured their hearts into the work. In those moments, I’m usually more disappointed for them than for myself. Yes, winning feels incredible and losing feels devastating. But neither feeling lasts forever. The important thing is to take the lesson, keep perspective, and move forward. If you can do that, even the difficult moments become valuable.
AI, Innovation and Skills
What skills will define successful media leaders in the next decade?
Curiosity, agility and resilience. Curiosity because everything is changing, and leaders who stop learning will quickly become irrelevant. Agility because the pace of change isn’t slowing down, and the ability to adapt will matter more than ever. And resilience because not every experiment will work, and constant change can be exhausting. We need to stay open-minded, keep learning and press ahead in the face of uncertainty.
How is AI changing the way you lead and make decisions?
AI isn’t making my decisions for me, and I hope it never will. I use it to pressure-test my thinking and challenge my assumptions so I can see whether my view still holds up. But leadership will always require judgement, empathy, context and accountability, so I make sure I do the thinking first.
What AI gives me is more information, more speed and more time to focus on the things humans are uniquely good at. The technology is incredibly powerful, but the responsibility for decisions remains with us.
What’s your advice for aspiring media leaders?
Don’t spend your career waiting to feel completely ready, because that moment never comes. Most of the biggest opportunities in my career arrived long before I felt prepared for them. Be curious, say yes more often than you say no, and remember that confidence usually comes after you’ve done the thing, not before.
I’ve always believed that very few decisions can’t be undone. More often than not, we regret the opportunities we didn’t take more than the ones we did.
The Quick-fire Round
Which book would you make required reading for all media leaders?
A shameless plug for an amazing friend of mine, Kevin Fong, whose new book, Minute Six: How High Performance Teams Navigate the Unknown, has just been published. It’s a fascinating look at how people make decisions and lead when the stakes are high, and the answers aren’t obvious. Given the world we’re all operating in today, that feels pretty relevant.
Which leader from TV, film, or literature inspires you most?
Maximus from the original Gladiator. There’s a scene in the arena where everyone is convinced they’re about to die, and he quickly organises a group of gladiators into a team. They survive because they work together. That scene taught me early on that different situations need different approaches. Sometimes leadership is about bringing people with you. Sometimes it’s about making a decision quickly and taking responsibility for it. The trick is knowing which moment you’re in.
What’s your go-to source for inspiration when you need it — work or otherwise?
My best friend. Whenever I’m having a crisis day, she has an uncanny ability to cut through the noise, tell me what I need to hear rather than what I want to hear, and help me see things clearly again.
Media lunch or media breakfast meeting and why?
Breakfast. I love a good brekkie. But not before 9 am. That is all.
Which media leader would you like to answer Leading Questions next?
Neil Bornman. For obvious reasons.
Leading Questions is published by The Media Leader every Friday.