Culture, Creativity And Collaboration In The AI Age: Inside DEPT

In a world where some agencies cling to legacy models and old hierarchies, DEPT is forging a new path — a quietly radical, globally ambitious, and concertedly modern one.

Launched in 2016 as a breakaway from the Dutch agency TamTam and a band of similarly spirited digital outfits, DEPT is the kind of agency group that didn’t wait for the future to arrive — it built the infrastructure for it, then scaled it fast.

With strategic backing from Waterland and The Carlyle Group, DEPT has grown into a powerhouse of more than 4,000 specialists across more than 20 countries and five continents. Its formula is simple: equal parts creativity and technology, data and design, strategic consulting and entrepreneurial energy. This is a truly 50/50 tech and marketing company — a model that feels not just modern, but increasingly necessary.

At its heart, DEPT is a borderless, creative-technology community. It says its people — representing over 85 nationalities — are united by a shared belief: that smart, well-crafted ideas can solve tomorrow’s complex problems today. With over 200 partners leading the business. It services more than $4bn in media management with performance commerce and CRM innovation, cutting-edge platforms and full-spectrum digital ecosystems, “unlocking tomorrow’s possibilities for today’s most ambitious companies”. Whether it’s building brands that shape culture, developing connected customer experiences, or leading the charge in AI transformation, DEPT aims to define what comes next.

Outlining the work of the company and its approach are, Isabel Perry, Dept’s global SVP of emerging technology, Andrew Dimitriou, global chief client and growth officer, Jeff Bowerman, executive creative director, Ali McClintock, the head of UKI, and Joanna Trippett, CEO of EMEA.

Creative Salon: You were the Webby Awards' Network Of The Year for four years in a row, and yet DEPT is still something of a best-kept secret in the industry. Let’s start with how you talk about yourselves.

Andrew Dimitriou: First off, we are a marketing, services and technology company that does creativity, media, commerce and technology. We don’t talk about ourselves as an agency, and we compete with a broader landscape of competitors including consultants, systems integrators, holding companies, large independents. Combining Integrated Marketing and Technology is where ambitious companies are headed, and we have a 50:50, marketing/:technology split – a clear point of differentiation.

CS: So what sort of culture do you have within the business?

AD: The culture stems from the top and its origins. This is a culture of “yes, and...” not “no because”; it’s a culture that encourages people. And that stems from our CEO and leadership to everybody who works here. It’s this entrepreneurial spirit where innovation happens.

Joanna Trippett: We talk about solving tomorrow's problems for today's most ambitious companies, and I think that really feels like it genuinely represents us — especially for the people who have been here a long time. We've got 200 shareholders who are employees in DEPT, people who have put their own money into the business because they believe in it. We're building a company we want to be part of — a place we want to work in. Many of us have unique backgrounds, and we really value people who bring varied, interesting perspectives. Our best people can span different disciplines, different service lines, and different industries. They might be a perfect expert in one thing, but they're also excellent at stitching things together. Some of our best people have had very nonlinear paths; that’s the magic of DEPT from a people and culture perspective.

Ali McClintock: One of the core tenets of our culture is creating an environment at DEPT where people can do the best work of their careers. Everyone at DEPT is expected to be an expert in their craft, whether it’s social, architectural design, or quality assurance (QA). But it’s the collaboration between these disciplines that enables truly brilliant work. Culturally, that means everyone is invested in working across teams to solve problems, even those not strictly in the brief, because we believe that’s where real innovation happens.

And this is supported by our P&L structure. There are fewer barriers between teams and that openness allows us to bring a unique perspective to solving briefs, one that sees marketing and technology as parts of a larger ecosystem. The ability to integrate across that ecosystem often determines success or failure, and that has a real impact for clients.

A good example is the 360 campaign we created with our long-standing client, Just Eat Takeaway to promote the collaboration with Netflix for the launch of Squid Games 2, which included an AI-powered game. Or the work we're doing with a major UK retailer to help them enhance their retail media ecosystem with AI agents. But because we also have a retail media team in-house, we’re both the builders and the target audience, testing and refining the product to make it as strong as possible.

That interdisciplinary mindset is embedded in everything we do. It’s not a system or a process, it’s the culture. And it sits alongside the idea of a squiggly career path, another defining part of how we work.

And what kind of people are DEPT people?

AM: Ah that’s a great question. I’ve been at this business for a really long time, and yet my role has changed every six months — because the technology changes, what good looks like creatively changes, and the tools we use change. So you really need people who thrive in change, who enjoy helping clients navigate change, and who are excited to do things differently.

We’ve been lucky to find a lot of those people, many of them in their first or second roles in the industry. They’re hugely ambitious, they thrive in change, and we’ve been able to supercharge their careers. It’s not about how long they’ve been in the industry — it’s about how brilliant they are. And for me, that’s one of the best parts of the job.

CS: How is this way of working reflected in how you’re helping clients navigate AI, Web3, digital sustainability, and so on?

Isabel Perry: It’s not just about the work we do, but also the work we enable our clients to do — and the way we work together. At DEPT, we take pride in being pioneers, often delivering industry firsts, but many of those happen in close collaboration with clients.

Beyond individual projects, a huge part of our focus is on helping clients work in entirely new ways. A great example is a long-standing partnership we have with a major tech company. While we’ve worked with them for decades, about three years ago their communications team approached us with a specific challenge: they had 600 people around the world using 300 spreadsheets to track every mention of the company in global news, in every language.

Because we already managed the data engineering behind their customer lifecycle marketing, we deeply understood their internal systems. So we developed a solution that automatically translates articles into English, prioritises those that need a response, and spins up proactive press releases. The impact has been huge. In year one alone, it freed up the equivalent of five full-time employees, and to date it has automated over 6,000 campaigns. The scope continues to grow each year.

That drive to work smarter and faster also applies to us internally. You may have heard about Lightspeed, our platform for creating assets at scale. Two years ago, it saved five of our UK clients millions by enabling more efficient asset creation. Now, we’re focused not only on volume, producing 10,000 assets a month, but also on using AI to drive quality.

We’ve also developed Greenhouse, our AI agent platform. It’s now being deployed across clients to automate brand voice checks, translations, and other QA processes. We’re reviewing assets that have been created for over 30 million customers — it’s a huge scale.

When it comes to your work, does DEPT have a particular style or creative approach?

Jeff Bowerman: Our best work tends to come from that “yes, and...” mindset, not just answering the creative brief, but asking what else we can bring to the table. We're at our best when a brief doesn't put creativity in a pre-conceived (TV) box. What sets DEPT apart is how we layer in innovation, media, tech, and data, always looking for the added value that makes the work more effective, leaves a lasting impression, and brings clients back, even if they move on to new roles or businesses.

The most impactful work usually includes a twist — something innovative that only DEPT can deliver. That’s not always easy, because it requires hiring creatives who are open-minded, not just focused on making a beautiful 60-second brand film. It’s about building a team that’s eager to collaborate across disciplines.

Take the Just Eat collaboration for the launch of Squid Games 2, which didn’t come in as a brief for a traditional ad. The challenge was: how do we make Just Eat more culturally relevant to a UK audience that's spending more time on social and streaming platforms, and less time watching TV ads? A single, big campaign wasn’t going to move the needle.

So, we worked with them to build something much broader. Yes, we created a 30-second spot, but we also developed a social campaign, a phone-led activation, and a real life experience for fans with a Korean Rave at Drumsheds. It became an immersive experience — not just more content, but smarter content. That’s the kind of work that feels uniquely DEPT.

We also love it when innovation takes a different shape. For example, our recent Trainline campaign wasn’t about AI or tech; it was about sustainability. We reused everything — from music to visuals — to create a campaign entirely from secondhand assets. It was a traditional creative idea, but with a smart, relevant twist. That balance matters.

As a creative, I’m always drawn to that kind of tension — between tech and craft, between data and instinct. At DEPT, we’ve got both: creative thinkers and data-driven minds. The key is keeping the conversation open. Not every brief needs to be solved with AI or AR. We always ask: what’s right for this project?

And because we offer such a wide range of capabilities, we’re not biased toward a single solution. We’re not trying to sell one specific thing to keep a team busy. We’ll recommend what’s genuinely best — whether that’s a huge content engine, an innovation-led campaign, or a smart automation play.

That range is hard to capture in one tidy sentence. Alongside the headline-grabbing work, we’re also powering CRM, social, and on-site content at scale — the work that sits in the background but fuels everything. It would be disingenuous to pretend it all fits one template.

What ties it all together is a pioneering mindset: how can we do things better, faster, more efficiently — and free up time and energy to focus on the creative parts that truly make a difference for our clients?

We hire T-shaped people — specialists in one discipline, but with the curiosity and mindset to understand and collaborate across many. That’s what keeps the work fresh, smart, and truly Dept.

Your B Corp status is clearly an important touchstone for your business and culture. Can you tell us about how that shapes the way you work?

AD: What’s important about B Corp for us is that it provides an external benchmark for the values we genuinely believe are central to our business. It wasn’t something imposed from the outside, it grew from within, by the people, for the people. Diversity, in all its forms, is core to who we are, and pursuing B Corp certification isn’t about optics; it’s about staying true to those principles.

It’s also the most rigorous accountability framework we have, more stringent than any current government regulation. So we’re deeply committed to B Corp, not just in name but in practice.

For us, that means actively driving diversity of thinking, talent, and background across the business. Looking around this table, Jeff and I might represent the least diversity, but that only underscores how important it is to build a company that fuels and celebrates a wide range of perspectives. B Corp gives us a structure to measure that progress, and hold ourselves to it.

JT: Going back to the point about shareholders, it’s about wanting to build a business we actually like. If we own part of it, we want it to be something we’re proud of. A lot of this, including our B Corp work, was a ground-up initiative from the people.

As part of B Corp, 1 per cent of our profits go toward pro bono projects. The American Society For Deaf Children's sign language project, for example, was completely pro bono. And in the UK, at the end of last year, we worked with the 93 per cent Club, which highlights that while 93 per cent of people in the UK go to state schools, they’re massively underrepresented in top institutions. We helped them with creative work and design language to support how they communicate. I think that’s cool.

But really, it comes back to the beauty of being part of an independent business: we get to do the work we want to do, and we can say 'no' to work we don’t believe in. That’s the spirit behind it, and just one of many things we do that reflect that ethos.

Looking to the near-future, what’s coming up on the horizon that you’re already getting excited about?

AD: As a company, we’re always looking out for what’s next, for the pioneering ideas and firsts that push the industry forward. There's the example of the remote sonogram for mothers, and we’re currently working on a project with NASA and Apple Vision Pro (which we can’t talk about yet). But the point is, we’re always operating at the edge of the latest technology.

That means you have to make trade-offs. You have to know what can be automated or made more efficient, so you can focus on what’s coming next. And that ability, to obsess over the future, is part of what drives us.

We don’t bet on one single thing; we bet on everything. Our job is to understand what’s emerging and help our clients navigate it. Whether it’s through our relationship with OpenAI or projects we’re leading with support from Google, it’s all about staying ahead.

It’s not about chasing one specific trend — it’s about staying in that mindset of constant evolution. And that, for me, is what makes this business so energising. What’s next is always shifting, and being part of a team that’s constantly exploring that is what gets me up in the morning.

JT: I think because of our DNA, being tech-enabled but also highly creative, and having Studios that are producing creative content 24/7, there’s a real opportunity for us to be the market leader in CRM. It’s a huge space, and we’re already doing a lot there, but I think it could be transformational — both for our clients and for us.

What I get most excited about at the moment is the total reinvention we’re about to see in UX, things like generative, just-in-time interfaces. We’ve been doing that with Burrow, a furniture retailer in the States, where we’re rethinking what it means to have a visual, generative AI interface, not just text-based. It opens up a totally new kind of commerce experience.

So those two things stand out from a services perspective. But I’m also excited about how we use AI internally. We do a lot of AI, top-down, bottom-up, for clients, for transformation, but what really interests me is figuring out how to make sure that when one person learns something, no one else has to learn it again.

It’s about speeding up how we get started with AI. Whether that’s spinning up an application using something like Cursor, just writing “build an app that does this,” and suddenly the copywriters have a working tool, we should be formalising that. We need to enable a pace that’s consistent across the whole of DEPT.

From an internal perspective, that’s what I’m really excited about.