Discussion: How We’re Organising Creative Work Across Creative Pro Group
Reading time 7 minutes.
A discussion between Jędrek Nykowski (Group Creative Lead) and Björn Wigforss (COO) about how Creative Pro works as a group and how the creative part is handled.
Björn:
Jędrek, welcome. You’ve just stepped into the Group Creative Lead role. Let’s talk straight about how we’re actually going to organise creative work across the group. Ready?
Jędrek:
Yes, let’s go.
How It All Started in Poland
Björn:
Looking back, what made you push the creative approach the way you did in Poland, and how does that experience help you now on group level?
Jędrek:
It started when I realised a concert and dinner weren’t enough anymore. I looked at how the big advertising and agencies worked, and saw they always began with real strategy and insights before any creative idea. In Poland back then, people thought I was overcomplicating things. “Just do the event.” But I knew experiences could work like proper advertising, just far more immersive.
Five years ago, I brought that thinking to Tomasz [Piekarski Managing Partner, Creative Pro Poland] and Stefan [Kozak, Founder and CEO]. We decided to invest in a fully capable creative team in addition to strong client service and production people. That wasn’t cheap and it was a risk, but it built the team that now wins the bigger creative pitches. The key lesson: Every strong result starts with the right questions, not the first visual. We stopped jumping straight into production and started digging into the brand, the audience, and what the client really needed to achieve.
That same approach is what I’m bringing to the whole group now. Poland went through the same phase the bigger Western markets went through years earlier. We’re not inventing anything new – we’re just applying it here, and I dare to say that we’re tweaking it too. The experience taught me that you can move a market forward if you invest in the right people and the right process. That’s why I’m confident we can help the other offices without forcing one single model on everyone – in fact, we already have evidence that it works!
Björn:
That matches what I’ve seen from the client side over the years. When I was still on the corporate side, the agencies that won the biggest budgets were always the ones who came in with homework done – they understood the business objectives first, then built the experience around them. Poland’s shift is a textbook example of that. You basically leapfrogged most of the local competition. What I like is that it wasn’t just theory – you proved it with real pitches and measurable results. That track record is exactly why this group role makes sense now. It gives us a proven blueprint we can adapt market by market instead of starting from scratch in other places.
What the Group Creative Lead Role Actually Looks Like
Björn:
In day-to-day work, how will this role function? What are you planning to do differently across the offices?
Jędrek:
It’s flexible. Sometimes I’ll take full creative lead from pitch to delivery – like we did in a recent project with a large company in the automotive industry together with one local team. We jumped in early, helped with the pitching, handled all the content and ideas, and last week we executed it together on site. This was a collaboration across three countries, three offices, with one way of working. The client saw people from three offices in three countries operating as one team and they were impressed. It worked because the local team handled production perfectly and we brought the creative strategy.
Other times I’ll support offices in building their own creative capability or just give input on strategy. For example, one of our team currently has big pitches coming and they need help right now. Other teams have different needs, and there it might make sense to start lighter in a consultative fashion. The goal is simple: Make Creative Pro the go-to agency in both Central and Eastern Europe for experiences that deliver results. We’ve already shown we can compete and win on European pitches – also outside of our home markets. Now we scale that without adding heavy structure. Poland’s way of working becomes a resource for everyone, always combined with local knowledge.
We’re not creating a big central department in Warsaw. That would be stupid and expensive. Instead, we use the people we already have. When a project needs extra creative firepower, we pull the best from wherever they are. The automotive case proved it works, and we’ve got plenty of similar examples just in the past year in Slovakia, Slovenia, Germany, Czech Republic and Hungary. One company, one logo, one cohesive team.
Björn:
I’ve been pushing this exact model with Stefan (Kozak) for the last year. From a business perspective, a big central creative department would kill our margins and slow us down. What works for us is keeping overhead low and leveraging the talent we already have in each office. We have won big international client project as a group, delivered better quality than any single office could alone, and we are starting to be perceived as a serious player on the European arena. We will apply this for more opportunities – especially those that are cross-border or strategically important for a particular market – and treat the rest as local business. That way we get the best of both worlds: Local speed and group firepower when it counts.
This is also a key reason why we’ve established a new team in Germany, Creative Pro Europe, who will serve larger international clients with Europe-wide GTM strategies.
Current Creative Challenges and Opportunities
Björn: What are the real creative problems you’re seeing right now, and where do you see the biggest opportunities for the group?
Jędrek: The main issue right now is technology fatigue. Clients and audiences are tired of things like AR just for show and screens that don’t mean anything. AI visuals are everywhere but often feel empty. Everyone used AR, photo booths, LED walls – it was cool for a while, but now it’s overused. At the same time, people want that real authentic connection again – workshops, proper concerts, actual human moments.
We solve it by keeping technology in the background. Use AI for strategy, research and copy, but let the real experience stay centre stage. That’s where the emotions and memories come from. I dare to say that VR/AR is basically dead as a wow factor. That said, AI as a tool is great – it helps with writing, planning, even some graphics – but if you put it in front of the audience it feels cheap. The trick is to use it behind the scenes so people don’t notice it.
The opportunity is clear: Most European markets are now moving toward strategic, experience-led work. Clients will start asking for exactly what we already do in Poland. When we combine our local understanding with group creative strength, we can deliver things others can’t match.
A recent pitch for a global technology company is a great example of how we collaborate: Even 20 people from different offices built one pitch in a week. Everyone contributed knowledge from their market. That kind of speed and quality is our advantage.
Björn: From the numbers I’m seeing at group level, you’re spot on. Our European leads are up around 40 % in the last six months, and almost all of them seek “live experiences” in the brief. Clients are tired of the same tech-heavy shows they saw everywhere post-Covid. What I find interesting is that our cost base is an advantage here – we can deliver deeper strategy without the overhead of the big London or German agencies. My take is that the next 12–18 months will be about proving we can do this consistently across borders. I’m confident that we will win more of these projects, not only through our Creative Pro Europe activities, but also within each national team.
What Success Looks Like in a Few Years
Björn: How do you see the Poland team and the other offices working together going forward? Fast-forward a couple of years – what does good look like?
Jędrek: Good looks like every office feeling confident in the process. Creative strategy flows naturally between teams. Poland shares the method; local teams bring market insight. No internal competition, just practical collaboration.
In a few years we’ll be winning bigger European pitches as one team. Clients will say: “Creative Pro doesn’t just run events – they turn ideas into results.” We’ll have offices that either run their own creative or use us as support, depending on what fits their market. Two offices will probably enhance their local creative teams further because the pitches are getting bigger, whilst other teams might ramp up differently with my team’s strong support. The point is we adapt to each country.
The projects I’ll be proud of are the ones where people from different teams stand together on stage and know they created something stronger than any single team could have done alone.
We already see leads coming in for European projects that didn’t exist before. Clients are realising we cover the region, and even the continent, properly. We just need to keep showing it works.
Björn: For me, success in two years looks like this: A majority of our revenue comes from projects that have a clear strategic creative component, not just logistics. We’ll have two or three offices running their own small creative teams, supported by you and your team when needed, and the group will be seen as a preferred partner, one that consistently delivers business results. The cultural shift we’re seeing already – people from different offices volunteering for group projects – tells me we’re on the right track. If we keep it practical and results-focused, this will compound fast.
Björn: Jędrek, thanks for the clear view. This is the practical direction we need. Good talk.
Jędrek: Thank you. Let’s get on with it.
Andrzej (Jedrek) Nykowski is Group Creative Lead and also Creative Director in our Polish team in Warsaw. Jedrek brings bold, innovative concepts to life, directing projects that spark authentic emotion, play, and unforgettable human experiences.
Björn Wigforss is our Chief Operating Officer. He’s been associated with the company for over 10 years, first as a non-executive advisor & partner and from 2023 as COO. Björn lives in Helsinki, Finland, and brings a wealth of experience and always challenges the organisation to up the game with his customer-centric mindset.
The featured image was created, and the text was checked, with the help of Grok 4.20.