Dividing and Conquering with Razorfish’s Josh Campo and Dani Mariano
As president and CEO respectively at Razorfish, Dani Mariano and Josh Campo have separate focuses but are, in their eyes, most certainly a “dream team dynamic”.
Typically, Josh’s CEO role focuses more on where Razorfish needs to be going over the next few years and what kind of agency it intends to be for the future. Whereas Dani, as president of the Publicis Groupe agency, focuses on how the team gets itself in the best shape possible right now.
The pair met back in 2016 following the merger of Sapient and Razorfish, both at the time working specifically on the Samsung account. Their first task together was the integration of two teams into one under Josh’s leadership. Josh, who was somewhat familiar with Samsung, but not nearly on the same level as Dani, admits to being “a bit intense” with the expectations he places on himself when it comes to onboarding a new client - but remembers Dani meeting him at every step of the process. “One day we’d be at Adobe Summit,” he says, “the next in New York in radically different contexts and meetings. I’m not sure the pace of our working together has ever changed from those beginning days.”
“My first meeting with Josh was over drinks with a few of the people from my team,” says Dani. “To be honest, I was ready to be unimpressed. Eight years later, reflecting on those early interactions, I remember someone keen to listen, learn and bring people together. He focused on the people, and the rest followed. Today, Josh is not a boss but a partner. And somewhere along the way, he became a mentor and friend.”
Dani remembers one of the first true tests of their newfound partnership was during a particularly busy RFP season where Razorfish had multiple large-scale pursuits over a four-week period. “I didn’t fully understand the task at hand until Josh stepped in and helped me mobilise teams to deliver answers,” she says. “It was a crash course and I learned so much from Josh on how he thinks about response development, creating real marketing solutions for clients, and telling a compelling story – all skills I use today. It was an exhausting four weeks, but even in those early days, we were honing our skills in our work relationship to divide and conquer, and Josh provided guidance and feedback throughout the process - and we won everything we were up for.”
That skill of dividing and conquering is key to their working relationship to this day. According to Josh, barely a day passes when they are not in constant collaboration. But prioritisation of what each of them needs to get done, and who is on point for what, is a key element of how they maintain a nimble relationship. “We are constantly dividing and conquering,” says Josh.
“We’re both fervently focused on growing the business, so we’re tag teaming on pitches and client meetings. It is important that we each have a relationship with our clients - but when we both show up together, it’s definitely a dream team dynamic in addition to being a show of our investment.”
They each approach their roles by leveraging their unique strengths and doubling down on skills they share. “Josh has the vision for the agency and long-term strategies,” says Dani, “while I focus on ensuring the day-to-day decision-making for our people and our clients are aligned to that vision.”
Innovation is a focus for both of them, whether it’s AI, web3, NFTs or martech. “Josh starts with his tech know-how, to think about how the tech will work for clients and how to bring solutions our clients can be confident in,” says Dani, “while I strive to think about how we can create experiences that marketers can use to connect with brands – and we meet in the middle for long conversations and brainstorms – imagine phone calls of how to build NFTs prototypes, our own AI avatars, etc.”
It turns out that Dani and Josh actually have a 1 in 30 million match when it comes to attribute strengths. They put it to the test via a strengthsfinder assessment and discovered that they have in common their top three out of four attributes - apparently the odds of which are as short as previously mentioned. “I think that lends itself to our like-mindedness and common values but we also have very different backgrounds and skills,” says Josh. “Dani brings a strong marketing background, whereas I grew up in technology. That’s part of what makes us so strong. Marketing today is inherently grounded in how you use technology to maximise business outcomes. This allows us to see the full field of what we need to do to help clients be successful.”
“It’s effortless to have a long-term partner,” says Dani of the benefits of having a close collaborator in business. “There’s no politics or need to be polite– and that creates a lot of efficiency and speed, which creates the ability to scale.”
“Secondly, we have common experience that we can draw from, and can easily anticipate perspectives, rationale and decision-making that streamlines alignment. We don’t always have the same opinion, but we can get to alignment faster,” she continues.
“Thirdly – because we know and trust each other - we can challenge each other without risk and ultimately be much bolder in our approach to running a business. And finally, it’s just much more fun to work with someone you like.”
“This may sound cliché,” adds Josh, “but this is a hard business to spend 20 years in. Our clients entrust us with the strategy and execution that should grow their businesses and, in many ways, determine their individual success as leaders. Our people trust us to provide them not only with a livelihood, but opportunities to grow and expand their realm of what’s possible. Creativity is an underlying power of the business - the realm of what’s possible is ever expanding. These opportunities are exciting, but sometimes taxing.”
“It’s crucial to have a partner who helps you balance it all, maintain a solid perspective, and - perhaps most importantly - have some fun along the way.”
