This in-depth interview is part of Worksuite’s ongoing series on Mastering Freelancer Management: Expert Strategies for Effectively Managing a Remote Talent Network. Download the full guide here, and subscribe to our YouTube channel to see the latest videos.
Dinesh Kapoor
Global Creative Director, Consumer Brand & Live Experiences
Bloomberg Media
Dinesh Kapoor is currently the Global Creative Director, Consumer Brand & Live Experiences at Bloomberg Media and defines his role as “amplifying the work of over 2,700 journalists and analysts in 120 global bureaus, across 70+ countries.”
Previously, Dinesh was the Group Creative Director at Ogilvy, working on IBM’s Cloud/Watson/Cybersecurity business, and IBM Consulting. He was also Creative Director at J. Walter Thompson Worldwide, working across client brands including HSBC, Ford, Royal Caribbean, Smirnoff, Macys, Welch’s, Merrill Lynch, Rolex, JetBlue, and Microsoft.
What do you love about your job when it comes to managing a creative workforce?
One major challenge for most creatives is that we first got into the business because we like to create. And the cost we pay here – as we grow and rise up through the ranks – is that we actually do less of that ourselves, and instead, become more of an agent to guide others.
For me personally, I’ve always had at least some “skin in the game” when it comes to doing the work. It’s very important to me. And quite honestly, I feel like if I have to energize a team or paint a picture or a vision, I need to be using my muscles physically – not just talk about things. That’s where sometimes that gap begins to exist.
In my opinion, collaborating and getting involved like this is a tool for building empathy. For example, if I’m sweating about the problem and using my muscles and feeling tired from the work, I have a better ability to understand that perhaps the workload is too much for my team, and we need extra resources.
Everybody does things differently. For me, having that one foot in the work helps me to speak about it more and be a cheerleader and evangelist for the creative vision.
At the same time, I know a lot of strong creative leaders who are very comfortable solely managing and leading people. However, I just always keep going back to the actual work itself.
That’s interesting. Obviously with your background in creative direction at some of the biggest agency names in the world, and now one of the biggest media brands in the world — have you seen any difference in how the contingent workforce is managed?
My role at Bloomberg is, in many ways, an extension of what I’ve always done in my advertising career. A lot of what I do is essentially simplifying and crystallizing the message – and then amplifying it.
And I would argue that’s exactly what I’ve done for brands I’ve worked with in the past. The way we manage the actual creative work is definitely changing, though. I think the fundamental difference that we’ve seen over the last 10 years is that the tools have become so democratic that it has facilitated very efficient remote work.
Don’t get me wrong – we’ve always wanted flexibility. And I think especially creative teams have always wanted the space to step aside and have a chance to really focus, “away” from a lot of the strategic thinking or day-to-day business.
But there was always guilt involved in stepping away to focus. We always felt that, yes we’re doing the work, but is that being acknowledged? Is it being perceived that way? And I think now, we are experiencing a moment in time where you have both the tools to create and the tools to manage – remotely – which didn’t exist before.
The fundamental difference that we’ve seen over the last 10 years is that the tools have become so democratic that it has facilitated very efficient remote work.”
Obviously COVID and the remote work boom that happened during those three years became a proof of concept. Even with some of the remote tools already available, what needed to happen was more of a cultural acknowledgment.
Yes, technology keeps improving, and there are better tools than ever before. But I think the big shift of cultural acknowledgment makes it possible to manage remote work more effectively. If I had to hypothetically design a startup product, I would feel very comfortable having a distributed global team and still be able to do something pretty great – which I couldn’t have achieved even five years ago.
I’ll give you an interesting example. Right before I came to Bloomberg, for a year I was involved with a makerspace, and we were doing a lot of interesting creative projects and consulting with startups.
For context, this was when GenAI tools like Midjourney and DALL-E just started coming along. And I was really excited about what those tools empower you to do in terms of initial brainstorming. A lot of that has been proven in the last two years.
However if you rewind two years ago, we had an idea that we wanted to produce using a specific animation technique. Now if you’ve ever worked on animated projects even five years ago, you understand they were generally the most time-consuming and costly things to do. You had to storyboard. And then you had to render. All of this would sometimes take up to six or seven months.
Instead, what we decided to do is design storyboards in Midjourney and DALL-E, and then we created this piece of work using Unreal Engine 5. Now the cool thing about this project? The people who did the Midjourney designs were based out of Serbia, and the people who were doing the Unreal Engine work were based out of India – and we were all collaborating around the clock from a basement in New York.The democratic tools coupled with the geographic flexibility made it possible for a really small outfit to create something that I thought was pretty impressive for the time. This wouldn’t have been possible even six months prior.
It comes down to where you are. For example with Bloomberg, we are a very “in-person” workplace culture, and I truly do believe that some of the best conversations you can have are when you are in the hallway, actually talking to people. At the same time, I understand that it can be done in many other ways, too.
The democratic tools coupled with the geographic flexibility made it possible for a really small outfit to create something that I thought was pretty impressive for the time.”
You mentioned earlier, giving creative people the space to create. What are some ways that you free up your contingent talent to focus on what they do best?
When you really think about the personalities of creative people, we tend to be more introverted and atypical.
There are days in the week when I know I’ll be more productive in a specific location. Having that flexibility is always a great thing. There are days when I would argue it’s way more productive for me to be in a physical office or studio space.
On the flipside, I also remember 18 years ago, when I was at J. Walter Thompson, when I would crave a creative escape, my art director partner and I used to go walk up to MoMA, primarily because we liked the quiet of those massive galleries. It was a very inspirational space.The agency had an office in Midtown Manhattan, but that little bit of physical separation by going to the museum helped us be more productive.
If there is trust built over time with your talent and teams – and through systems and clear communication – then having the flexibility to carve out your own space can hugely benefit creative teams.
I think a lot of it comes back to the kind of work we do and the “casting” of the people who do that work. Creatives tend to perform better when we have a little more space – physically and mentally.
Can you share more about “casting”? How do you match the right creative talent to the right projects?
Yes, I use that word a lot, and I have to credit it to an interview I heard with Ethan Coen.
In the interview, the Coen brothers were asked about how they go about thinking of ideas for films, and how much latitude they give the actors to improvise. Coen said that they invest most of the energy in casting for the story or the role. Then, once you are confident that you have the right cast in place, you can give them the freedom to improvise and take the work to another level. I totally subscribe to this idea. Whenever I’ve been in a situation where I’ve felt a lack of control, or things are slightly off, this is generally when the casting is not right.
You can control the casting on your side of the team, too. Sometimes you have no control about the casting at all – who your client is, for example. But it does make a difference when you can have some insight and visibility into all the people who put together the work. I’m a huge believer in casting.
Invest most of the energy in casting for the story or the role. Then, once you are confident that you have the right cast in place, you can give them the freedom to improvise and take the work to another level.”
I love that. When it comes to leadership and guiding that creative work forward, is there a difference between managing internal and external talent?
To me, there is no difference.
I seek clarity. I want to make sure everything that’s being asked for, serves the quality of the work. And finally, I want to ensure that the person overseeing the project has my best interests in mind.
Let’s say I’m an illustrator or a photographer, and I simply want integrity and transparency in the way that work will be used. Those principles don’t change. Transparency, trust, and clarity – these are such old-fashioned values that apply universally to creative workforce management.
Whether I work digitally with a completely remote team, or a physical in-person team – those things don’t change, in my opinion.
What would you say is the most important aspect of managing creative talent?
I really do think it’s important to have a clear vision. You want to have your leader draw the margins of where you can go. And the bigger and the broader that vision is, it requires a certain level of confidence.
You want whoever is driving the creative direction to have that ability. One of the biggest blockers to doing great work is when there’s fear involved, or when you feel like your stakeholders will not have the ability to sell it through.
This leads me to another important aspect: Empathy. You want a manager to truly understand your challenges. And in fact, empathy informs clarity, because then I will understand the pain points to make sure that I’m accessible, and that I’m giving you all the information that you need. And then that coincides with the trust aspect.
To sum it up:
Those are the important things because there’s so much complexity in the kinds of projects we do. And I’m very aware that there are individuals in my team who are more skilled than me in a certain domain or category.
I think the best thing that I can do is to make sure that I’m giving them the freedom to do what they do best. I am going to be clear – so we don’t waste time or resources. And then they can trust me. I think those principles triangulate and work in conjunction with each other.
I think the best thing that I can do is to make sure that I’m giving them the freedom to do what they do best.”
Love it. Thank you. I have one more question. What does the future of work mean to you? What are you seeing that’s going to be really important for the future workforce?
We are clearly now at a point where we can cast a wider net. And we can bring in resources in many cases where the barriers are gone. In contrast, previously 15-20 years ago, if you wanted to work with someone globally, you needed the weight and the infrastructure of an agency network or a big holding company.
Whereas today, you can sit in your basement from anywhere in the world and create some infrastructure that inspires trust and credibility. This could be from your social media presence, your portfolio, or your channel of choice. And you can easily reach out to an international contractor and say, “I need you to animate something” or “I need you to write code for this project.”
And you can actually make that happen globally, from the comfort of home. I think there’s going to be more of that. I believe that this democracy of tools and skills is going to enable nimble creative work that happens faster. At the same time, its going to get very noisy. Everyone can do this now.
From my point of view, I think the future of work is going to be more decentralized. But also incredibly competitive.
Well said. Any last words to grow on for people managing a large creative workforce?
The one thing that we might not have in the future is a large creative workforce. I think that this whole idea of “how many people we need” to do the things that we want to do is fundamentally changing. That’s the big difference.
To answer your earlier question, “what has changed?” I feel like my teams are much, much smaller. But I’m very invested in what makes up those teams, for the same reason. This goes back to the casting idea. One of the key things that I’m encouraging the smaller teams to do is to familiarize themselves with more of these democratized tools.
What we may not have anymore in the luxury of large headcounts, we can make up for with technology. I want to make sure that the people who are there, can do amazing work with the additional tools that they have.
I think that is a large part of the ‘future of work’ conversation. I’ve worked in organizations where it was very normal to have 20-30 people working on a large piece of business. I think those days are long gone.
As we move forward, there’s a lot of change happening. I won’t say the cliches of AI and all of that. But there is no doubt that we are going to be working with smaller teams.
Arguably, I think this should put pressure on leaders and managers to take really good care of those people, because it’s possible to then keep that door open – and see how we can use the tools to do the work better.
So more of a “quality over quantity.”
Absolutely. Really treat that talent well so you can keep them engaged.
This should put pressure on leaders and managers to take really good care of those people, because it’s possible to then keep that door open – and see how we can use the tools to do the work better.”