PODCAST

What happens when you combine the soul of an artist with the mind of an operations architect? In this episode of Purpose & Process, host Tony Baker sits down with longtime collaborator and creative operations leader Joe Lamb, whose career has spanned pivotal roles at Amazon and Nike "mega-studios". Joe shares his journey from photographing shoes in a Kentucky warehouse to leading global-scale studio operations and launching Nike’s ICON Studio in Los Angeles, its advanced in-house content studios. Along the way, Joe unpacks the overlooked value of patience, humility, and pattern recognition in leadership—and why investing in your team’s growth is non-negotiable.

Key Takeaways:

✔️ How repeatability and creative freedom can co-exist

✔️ Why 'innovation culture' looks different inside creative teams

✔️ Lessons from building (and rebuilding) scalable studio systems ✔️ The value of trust and transparency with stakeholders

✔️ Future-facing leadership in the age of automation and AI

Whether you’re a studio leader, creative contributor, or someone navigating the business of creativity, this episode is full of thoughtful insights you won’t want to miss.

Whether in life or an adventure, motorcycling, do you want to keep your focus on the horizon so you don't get tripped up by the tiny obstacles on your path.

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The easiest & cheapest way to subconsciously trigger your team into giving you their best performance. No … really!!

This is one of the simplest things to understand, but almost always goes overlooked. Studio leaders will come to the same conclusion about the most valuable part of the studio, but I cut to the chase in this quick video so we can better understand what needed to maintain a studio's value to the larger organization, stakeholders, internal clients and external customers.