100 Days at the Helm of Mother LA

Around a hundred days ago, Sophie Gosper landed in Los Angeles from Australia and into a new leadership role at Mother LA. At the same time, Nika Rastakhiz was taking a leap from a long tenure at a rival agency to join the independent creative shop.

Now three months into their roles as managing director and head of strategy, respectively, Sophie and Nika are brimming with energy – and pleasantly surprised by what true independence feels like.

“What has blown me away here is the power of being able to make your own calls on who you work with, what values you share with partners, and genuinely caring about people over profit,” says Sophie.

That freedom, she adds, comes with “transparency, internal trust,” and a focus on “the betterment of the work, the relationships with our partners, and the people who work here”.

It’s a world apart from the holding-company grind she’s known before.

Pictured above: Sophie Gosper

Independent, But Really

With careers forged inside network-owned agencies, both say they weren’t prepared for the liberating jolt of Mother’s independent spirit.

“Here, you really do control your own destiny,” says Sophie. “If we partner with a new client, it’s because we choose to… We want to make brilliant work with them – not because of a bottom line that needs to be hit. It’s about building genuine, long-term relationships. That's a special feeling.” The freedom has re-energised her belief that caring about people over profit is a far cry from a whimsical ideal and actually a solid, practical business strategy.

For Nika, the happiest surprise has been the breakneck speed at which things can happen in an independent setup. In an industry where promotions or new hires can be mired in red tape, she explains, Mother LA’s leadership can make a call on Monday and have the paperwork done by Friday. “That's unheard of in much of our industry,” she says, citing a recent instance where a deserving team member was immediately promoted, with no corporate hoop-hopping required.

Pictured above: Nika Rastakhiz

It’s a Balancing Act, After All

When I ask where Mother LA is headed, I’m not met with a jargon-stuffed five-year plan. Instead, they talk about ambition and balance in the same breath. Sophie says that within every person in the building lives an immovable desire to make the agency’s next chapter, its defining one – and the energy and momentum that flows from this is visceral.

Both leaders are focused on growth, but not the growth-at-any-cost kind. It isn’t just about new growth, “but also organic growth with some of our marquee clients like Sonic, Buick, Meta, Postmates, and Uber,” says Nika. That covers everything from pitching new clients to expanding assignments with existing ones. Yet, importantly, she adds, “That’s only half of the equation. The other has been about people.”

In their first months, the leadership team – (which also includes head of production Erin Goodsell and CCO Jed Cohen–) carved out the time to bond and align on values. Off-site retreats and deep conversations – even swapping childhood stories – were all in service of building trust at the top so that when “leadership is aligned, respects each other, and speaks the same language, the rest of the agency feels it.”

They’ve been sure to be intentional about keeping a 50/50 focus on people and clients, culture and work, rather than being pulled into the client side 24/7 as is typical for agency leaders. Sophie insists that if that balance slips, the whole operation wobbles.

Two Paths to One Destination

Nika and Sophie have different backstories, but both converged on this leadership moment with a shared sense of purpose.

In London, she thrived under Grey’s celebrated leadership of Nils Leonard and co., and in Australia she helped build The Monkeys (later Droga5 Melbourne) into a creative force. That success, she says, has fuelled a desire to “give back to the next generation of creative thinkers and problem solvers”.

“That’s a big part of why I joined Mother,” Sophie says of the leadership vision she shares with Nika (and Jed Cohen, Mother LA’s CCO). “It’s about the people – helping them get the best out of their careers and be the best they can be.” A new mother herself, the agency’s mission to “Make Our Children Proud” resonated strongly.

Nika’s path evolved from publishing to strategy on both US coasts. She started in magazine publishing in San Diego before moving to New York with no job – “wildly irresponsible and erratic,” she jokes, “but the best decision I ever made.”

She found her calling in strategy at Publicis, working with brands like P&G and GM, before joining Droga5 in its golden years. Returning to California in 2017, she helped grow Anomaly LA from a 10-person outpost into a fully fledged agency over eight years. From Publicis came rigorous planning fundamentals; from Droga5, a taste of creative excellence; from Anomaly, the experience of shaping an agency.

By early 2025, she wanted a role that combined all those tools and gave her a seat at the table – and Mother LA offered exactly that. “That's where we are now – figuring out how to make this place everything we believe it can be,” she says. “The culture here is incredibly strong and special. The challenge now is getting the business to catch up with how powerful the culture already is.”

Two Leaders, Two Styles

When asked about their leadership styles, both trace their approaches to the people and places that shaped them, but they’re equally candid about what they’re still working on.

For Nika, she’s owning her introversion. “I do firmly believe this is an industry that celebrates and elevates extroverts… the loudest or most charismatic voice in the room often wins,” she says. “I’ve spent the last eight years creating a space for introverts to have maximum influence. Sometimes saying one thing in the course of a meeting can change the entire direction of a campaign.”

Her strategist hat, she admits, comes with a flipside of ‘over-adaptability’. “I can put myself in the shoes of any consumer in any category. But in leadership, you can’t always be adaptable; you have to stay true to your own voice.”

Sophie frames her style as “the ever-tightrope” between inspiration and nurture. “The best leaders make people sit up and listen, but also feel part of the conversation. Some days I get it right; some days I don’t.

“You don’t want people to feel too comfortable, but you also want them to know that if they push and get it wrong, you’re there to catch them.”

Their desire to upholster Mother LA’s strongest asset – the culture – with the work is palpable in the appetite for responding to shifting market conditions. “We can adapt to project-based clients, lean into sprint briefs, and ride the production waves that are coming with AI,” says Sophie. “We can play a role in any shape clients want agencies to adapt to.”

Nika adds that versatility is a goal in itself, “Not just in the type of work we create, but in the business challenges we take on,” saying they are thinking about how to get more upstream in untangling business problems.

On Legacy

The new LA office has quickly become a point of pride for the time. Its centrepiece – a vast wraparound kitchen table with a tree growing through it – nods to Mother’s history while signalling its openness. “We want this to be a home for creativity in Los Angeles,” says Sophie. “Not just for our team, but for artists, photographers, [and] other agencies. A place of optimism for the industry at large.”

It’s a vision that connects back to Mother’s aforementioned mission statement. Speaking about how it struck a chord, Sophie says, “It’s about making the best work of our lives with the best people and being proud of it. There’s something honest and true about that.”

At the hundred-day mark, talk of legacy might seem a bit premature, but if there’s a single measure of success for Nika and Sophie, it won’t be in awards or revenue charts, but how people remember their time at the agency.

Sophie knows people won’t stay forever; agency life is transient, but if they can look back and feel proud, knowing they made some of the best work of their career, “that’s the whole point”.

Both can look back on moments in their careers where they’ve felt that way, and whether that’s a romantic ambition, or as Nika teases, “maybe delusional”, they are both determined as hell to try.

‘It’s our responsibility to bottle it up and give it to this generation. That’s the ambition. If we can do that, we’ll have achieved what we set out to do.’