The Unfiltered Truth About Being a Female CEO in Digital Agencies – Vanessa Cartwright (ex-Astound, Blast Radius, Fluid)

Episode notes

Vanessa Cartwright – 25-year digital agency titan (Astound Commerce, Blast Radius, Fluid) and the sharpest M&A / transaction-readiness advisor in the game – goes completely unfiltered on MarTalks: Why women still walk into mostly-male boardrooms in 2025 (and how the loudest voices in tech are currently celebrating zero-empathy leadership) The brutal loneliness of being CEO: no real peers, can’t show weakness up or down, and the myth of “having all the answers” The hidden deal-killers in agency exits: client concentration, founder risk, missing recurring-revenue rigor, and profitability by service line Why some agencies are waking up to find their beautiful recurring revenue just got eaten by Shopify + composable How to productize services without losing the creative soul clients pay for Building safe, competitive-free peer groups for first-time CEOs (especially women) And yes… restoring 100-year-old wooden sailing boats, hoisting sails next to polar bears in the Arctic, and why every CEO needs a real hobby If you’re a female founder, first-time CEO, agency owner eyeing an exit, or just want the real talk on power, money, and empathy in 2025 tech, this one hits different.