Judith Carr-Rodriguez and the case for fewer, better people

Judith Carr-Rodriguez arrived in New York with a job to do and a sensible plan: listen, learn, then decide. The agency she had been sent to run needed a turnaround. Its staff needed to know what would happen next. Her careful waiting, she later realised, was giving them more uncertainty. A boss urged her to trust her judgment and act. Years later, she would describe the principle in three words: “clarity is kindness.”

There is a familiar temptation in leadership to confuse a polished answer with a useful one. Carr-Rodriguez’s career offers a more interesting possibility. A decision can help people move before the person making it feels entirely ready. That lesson runs through the way she talks about FIG, the independent creative agency where she is partner and CEO: experienced people, close to the work, with enough trust to get on with it.

First, learn the languages

Her route into advertising began with French and German at the University of Bristol. She spent time in both countries, became fluent, and still did not have a settled answer to the question of what came next. Agency presentations during graduate recruitment caught her attention. Direct marketing, with its interest in individual behaviour and the emerging digital world, offered a way in.

In 1999 she began as a graduate trainee at Lowe in London. Her subsequent jobs included Lowe Direct and Lowe Live, followed by independent digital agency Wheel, and then LBi. The progression placed her in a business whose tools and expectations were changing quickly. A website was becoming something a brand needed to think about seriously, even when the established agency world was still working out who should make it.

That early choice matters to her later career. She moved toward a form of advertising that required learning while doing. Digital work gave her experience with changing consumer relationships, rather than simply carrying an existing message onto another screen. It also gave her a route from account leadership into running an agency.

A smaller agency, on purpose

By the time FIG opened in 2013, Carr-Rodriguez had been president of LBi US and MRY. Mark Figliulo brought a different background, including leadership at TBWA\Chiat\Day. Their new business joined experience in digital advertising with experience in brand creativity. Sprint was the founding client, giving a young agency a substantial assignment from the outset.

The pairing was also a chance to choose how the business would work. An agency’s structure determines who hears a client’s problem, who interprets it, and how many people stand between a promising idea and the person able to approve it. FIG’s current description of its model keeps experienced talent involved in daily work and direct client relationships. The promise is practical: the people with the judgment should be there when it is needed.

Independence gives that promise a particular weight. Partners can make choices about the kinds of assignments they want and the capabilities they need. They also carry the consequences. Creative freedom and commercial responsibility arrive together; neither politely waits outside while the other has a meeting.

In October 2018, Figliulo & Partners shortened its name to FIG and promoted Carr-Rodriguez from president to CEO. The change followed the acquisition of digital agency Hungry Inc. Figliulo credited her with bringing Hungry into the business and launching its in-house media initiative. The appointment recognised work she was already doing to broaden what the agency could offer.

A shorter name is a pleasingly modest piece of housekeeping for an advertising agency. The more consequential change was how responsibilities were arranged. Carr-Rodriguez would lead the company as CEO, while Figliulo could spend more time on the creative and strategic work. An agency sells its ability to make choices. Here was one of its own.

The conversation after the client leaves

A founding account can give a new business momentum. It can also make the business unusually exposed when that relationship ends. Carr-Rodriguez has recalled what happened when FIG lost Sprint: the agency gathered its people and explained the situation. In her account, there were no layoffs at that point, and Virgin Atlantic and Marriott subsequently joined the client roster.

The episode is revealing because its central act was a conversation. There was unwelcome news, and she chose to share it. Employees were given information about the business they belonged to, rather than left to interpret a silence. Her recollection also places the next client wins alongside that decision, connecting the agency’s commercial future with the people who would have to make it happen.

Virgin Atlantic appointed the agency as its North American creative partner in January 2015. Its assignment included bringing the airline’s global “Let it Fly” campaign to the US, with a strong digital emphasis and collaboration with other agency partners. It was a concrete application of the combination FIG had been built to offer: brand thinking that could travel through different media.

The later Virgin Atlantic work, “Adventurers Welcome,” took another useful creative turn. FIG sought to broaden the airline’s appeal to business travellers while keeping its character intact. A work trip could contain adventure, too. The brief asked the agency to look past the obvious division between business and pleasure and find a story that belonged to the brand.

An introvert at the head of the room

Carr-Rodriguez calls herself “a natural introvert.” Walking into a room of unfamiliar people and introducing herself can still be daunting, she has said. That is an unusually candid admission from someone whose job depends heavily on relationships. It gives her account of leadership a welcome human scale: a title does not automatically make its holder enjoy networking.

She has also described working to balance competence with warmth, and investing in a professional coach as she moved from president to CEO. The value she found in that experience helped prompt FIG to make coaching available to its team. Her public testimonial for coaching company Sayge connects the investment to an ambition the agency had from its beginning: providing a good home for creative talent.

Her personal model for ambition is closer to home. She has named her mother, the family’s main breadwinner, as her hero, admiring how she balanced work and family. Asked about women in positions of authority, Carr-Rodriguez has argued for broader representation and more opportunities to lead. She has also warned brands against borrowing a cultural issue simply to profit from it. Values should hold up beyond the campaign.

There is a useful connection between those views. A business can say it values people, and an advertisement can say a brand values something. Both statements acquire meaning through behaviour. Coaching, a candid discussion, or the opportunity to make a decision gives an abstract ambition a place to live in the working day.

“I’m a natural introvert.”

JUDITH CARR-RODRIGUEZ · 2023

Trust has to survive the brief

For Carr-Rodriguez, a desirable client is defined less by its category than by its willingness to trust. She asks for shared values and listening on both sides. The agency should understand the pressure on a marketing leader; the client should give weight to the experience of the people hired to help. A long relationship creates room for that understanding to develop.

Her recollection of Sprint’s early work singles out CMO Jeff Hallock and advertising leader Tracy Palmer for being willing to take a chance on a new agency and unfamiliar creative work. She also treats onboarding as a serious part of the relationship, with time spent understanding both the business and the people. A good start requires more than exchanging a brief and a calendar invitation.

The work gives those arguments something to stand on. FIG’s CNN “Facts First” campaign addressed the broadcaster’s identity at a moment of distrust. The agency describes a digital-first strategy and a production model capable of responding quickly to events. For Virgin Atlantic, the problem was a different audience. For Publix, the creative proposition could be as everyday as food expressing what people struggle to say.

In that Publix film, dogs discover that their mail carrier, Bob, is leaving and devise a way to persuade him to stay. Handmade puppetry gives the story its form. The social work extends the characters’ world into conversations outside the store. It is a useful reminder that an agency interested in data can still end up making a film about dogs with a plan.

Give the saved time somewhere to go

Carr-Rodriguez’s interest in technology has continued into creative intelligence. FIG’s StoryData platform converts advertising assets into data for analysis, using a classification system to examine creative qualities and compare work. The agency says it uses the tool through strategy, development, and measurement, combining creative analysis with media performance information.

The attraction is understandable for someone responsible for both the work and the business. Creative decisions need an argument that a client can examine. A useful tool can help a team understand the surrounding category, ask a sharper question, or identify where a brand’s communications resemble everyone else’s. It still takes people to decide what to make from that information.

In a 2022 opinion piece, Carr-Rodriguez made a related argument about automation: use the time it saves to improve craft and train people. She also described the importance of giving an internal product an owner who could focus on it. Technology, in that account, comes with organizational choices. Buying a tool is easier than deciding how the people around it should work.

How much bigger should the future be?

Her February 2026 appearance on the Agency Business podcast returned to small, senior teams, long-term client relationships, and controlled growth. The question had survived the years: how does an agency expand without adding unnecessary distance between its people and its work? Client fit and longevity were part of her answer.

Recognition has followed her career, including Ad Age’s Leading Women in 2022 and Meta’s The List in 2023, 2024, and 2025. Her biography also describes an active role at the 4As. In April 2026, she was listed for an Own It summit session on agency owners putting AI into practice. The subjects have changed; the responsibility for choosing how to work remains.

When asked what advice she would give her younger self, Carr-Rodriguez offered: “Lighten up. It’s only advertising!” It is an appealing last instruction from someone who has spent so much time taking the work seriously. Keep the people close. Make the decision. Leave a little room to enjoy what happens next.