Monks’ New EMEA EVP Wants to Make Life Easier for Marketers
Juanita Draude wants to get on with it. “I’m an impatient person,” she confesses. “I want to move forward quickly, with the right decisions, at the right pace. Monks has the momentum to do that.” That was one of the biggest reasons she was drawn to the role of executive vice president, EMEA at the S4 Capital creative company.
She began in her role at the start of 2025, and she’s determined to make an impact fast. “It’s a strange place to be. You take in so much information, and then you think, ‘Why haven’t I done all of this yet?’. You can see all the pieces, but they’re just swirling around in your head. You have to manage your own expectations.”
After eight years at Publicis Groupe, Juanita had grown to know that organisation very well. Now she’s beginning to adjust to a completely different company. “When you’ve been somewhere that long, absorbing all the new information – new structures, new terminology – it’s a lot to take in,” she says.
“There’s been so much buzz around Publicis in the last 18 months, and don’t get me wrong, it was a fantastic journey. I loved every minute of it,” she continues. “For me, it was about a new challenge – personally, but also professionally. Monks sits in this perfect sweet spot – it’s big enough to have the investment, technology, processes, and capabilities to drive real change, but small enough to move quickly.” It suits her impatience.
“At Monks, we can be on the front foot, leading the change that clients need. With larger companies, it’s just naturally harder. There are more stakeholders, more moving parts – it takes longer to get the engine running for change.”
There are two specific qualities that drew Juanita to Monks. First, the network’s recognition for what marketing leaders and our clients actually need, as she sees it. “One of the biggest challenges has been orchestration. For so long, marketing leaders have been juggling multiple channels and communication avenues, trying to keep control and deliver a consistent experience for their customers. Monks has recognised the need to orchestrate that in a way that doesn’t feel like a heavy lift – it makes it tangible and easy for clients to action immediately. You can see that with our orchestration partnership, which was evidenced by the GM win last year.”
Launched at CES 2024, Monks.Flow is an AI-centric professional managed service that aims to streamline how humans and machines interoperate. It is built to provide intelligent solutions for marketing activities via pre-tested pipelines that automate processes and connect talent trained in AI, the latest AI tools, enterprise software, and microservices into efficient, automated workflows. Aware that clients have already made big investments in platforms like Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, or other CRM systems, the network has deliberately gone in a different direction. “They don’t need more bespoke tech,” says Juanita. “What Monks has done with Monks.Flow is brilliant – it sits on top of existing investments, accelerating performance and efficiency, quickly and easily.”
Of all the advertising holding companies, Publicis Groupe, where Juanita previously held the role of chief growth officer for EMEA, has been arguably the most vocal for the longest about its tech and data solutions. “Publicis moved very early into that space and has been on an innovation journey for a long time,” reflects Juanita. “That means I’m very comfortable in a tech-focused, innovation-driven organisation – which is exactly what Monks is.
“Monks is pushing the boundaries of tech and innovation, but also its intersection with creativity in a way that, honestly, I think if I’d come from a different holding company, I wouldn’t feel as confident immersing myself in this space. Tech and innovation require deep expertise, and I think you need a level of understanding to engage with it properly.”
For Juanita, there’s a language of innovation and data that requires a fluency in how these services answer client needs. “The tech and innovation that Monks brings is exciting in itself, but it’s only valuable when we can apply it to client challenges – turning it from a thing into a real benefit. That’s where I feel comfortable, and I think my time at Publicis makes my start here faster.”
However, what matters most to Juanita is bringing clients to the table to show the benefits that Monks has brought them. “That’s the most powerful way to communicate our impact,” she says. “There will also be a bigger focus on proactively telling real impact stories around orchestration and real-time brand building.”
The real-time brand proposition, which you may have already seen, is something Juanita sees as proof of Monks’ orchestration approach. “It’s how we’re creating at the speed of culture – working with clients to deliver real-time brand experiences for their customers and audiences,” she adds.
“A lot has happened in this space over the last 12 months, and 2025 will be the year where we start telling those stories – making them real and accessible for both existing clients and those we’re looking to bring into the Monks family.”
Right now, so much change is happening around new technology. And AI is the obvious area that’s making the biggest impact on the industry. “Every marketing leader knows AI has the potential to revolutionise their work, but many still don’t know where to start,” Juanita says. “While bigger clients have been running proof-of-concept tests over the last 12 months, that first real step into AI can still feel really daunting. A huge part of my role, particularly for our EMEA clients, will be helping them see that it’s not actually that difficult[...] It doesn’t have to be scary – we’re not asking clients to overhaul everything.”
Monks has found ways to bolt onto what clients are already doing and make AI immediately applicable, whether that means a better understanding of audiences in a whole new way that wasn't accessible before, or better, faster, cheaper, scale and delivery of content. “Those things are what people want, but that first step to make it feel easy is going to be a big external communication point for me in 2025.”
Helping Monks’ clients find easy solutions is crucial “because, let’s face it, they’re really busy.” Juanita can understand, having worked as a marketing director herself for the NBA before her career went agency-side.
Another thing she’s focused on is helping marketing leaders justify their decisions by providing them with information, tools, and insights that support their decision-making. Marketing leaders need to stand up for creativity when speaking to finance leaders. “From a finance lead’s perspective, they’ve seen their organisations – whether in customer experience or marketing – spend a lot of money in the last few years implementing valuable tools to manage customers and communicate across different audience touchpoints. And now the industry is saying, ‘Here’s AI – now you’ve got to start all over again’. That’s not realistic. The assumption that companies need to spend huge amounts on AI misses the point.”
Instead, the decisions need to be made around applying AI tools with the minimal burden, maximum acceleration, and output from a lot of the investments, whether that's in people, tech or structures that have already happened within client businesses. “That’s why I think Monks.Flow is so smart,” she says. “I have to say – the tech here has blown me away. It was a huge driver for me in joining Monks – it’s so intelligent, so forward-thinking. And most importantly, it’s not about wholesale change for clients. It’s about adding to what they’re already doing – enhancing their existing investments rather than replacing them.”
The second thing that’s blowing Juanita away is the talent she’s working with. “You expect to find fantastic talent in the creative industries, but the people at Monks are extraordinary,” she says. “Every time I speak with a new group of Monks in EMEA, I’m excited to hear their perspectives. And because of the way Monks is structured – with this single organisational model – it means that, no matter where you are in the business, your ideas can be surfaced and acted upon quickly. Everyone has something brilliant to contribute, and Monks really embraces individual brilliance alongside collective action and output.”
Getting settled in at Monks, the simplicity of the business’ shape has struck her. “I think people underestimate how powerful the single P&L model is,” she says. “A true, unified organisational structure – one way of deploying resources, talent, and tech – is genuinely the most exciting thing about this company. It means we can pivot and react to what our clients need on any given day much more easily. For clients, it might not seem like something they need to care about. But the benefit they get is seamless agility – which is huge in solving real client challenges.”
