My Husband Wasn't Paid for 9 Months, So We Built a 500 Freelancer Network

This week I'm joined by Pav, CEO of We Are The Allies, the incredible agency behind this podcast, and it's one of the best founding stories I've heard.

Pav's career started in the accounts department of a Leeds agency (she didn't even have the GCSEs for it) and took her through the marketing departments of Morrisons, Poundland and Co-op before she finally went out on her own. But the real spark came from her husband Rick, a freelance creative director who went nine months without being paid on a major campaign. That injustice became the founding brief for Creative Allies, sketched out on the back of a napkin, literally.

Seven years on, that napkin sketch is a network of 500 vetted freelancers across 46 creative categories, working with 400+ agencies and clients. We talk about how they built trust at scale (480 interviews before they'd take on 135 people), why freelancers deserve to be paid in 14 days not 9 months, their work opening doors for next-gen talent through Channel 4's Content Creatives programme, and what's next as they build out an AI division.

It's a brilliant listen if you've ever wondered what happens when someone gets properly, righteously annoyed on someone else's behalf and turns it into a business.