01/
↗
Know your
numbers.
See which services and projects create real profit. Improve budgets, cost visibility, and the decisions that protect your margins.
Embedded operational leadership for creative & marketing agencies
Make the business as good as the work.
You’ve built an agency that produces exceptional work. But as it grows, so do the demands on your team, your time, and your bottom line. Mad Mouse brings experienced operational leadership into the business—improving performance today and creating the capacity to pursue bigger opportunities tomorrow.
For established creative and marketing agencies ready to strengthen the business behind the work.
MAD MOUSE / 001 — THE MODERN OPERATOR
Built for the businesses behind great creative.
AGENCY EXPERIENCEEXECUTIVE-LEVEL LEADERSHIPHANDS-ON EXECUTIONThe challenge behind the growth
Your agency has grown.
Has the way you run it?
The processes that worked with five people rarely work the same way with fifteen. Projects become harder to predict. Decisions pile up. Great people wait for clarity. And the founder becomes the default answer to everything. Growth should create opportunity—not more dependence.
See what Mad Mouse changes ↗Know your
02/
✳
Build your
people.
Give talented people clear priorities, the right support, and real ownership. Build accountability without making every decision yourself.
03/
◎
Run it
better.
Put experienced leadership behind delivery. Improve handoffs, remove bottlenecks, and turn strategy into consistent day-to-day execution.
Leadership that gets involved
We don’t stop at recommendations.
We lead the work.
We join the leadership conversation, assume agreed operational responsibilities, and work with the people responsible for making change real. See what that means inside an agency.
What embedded leadership looks like ↗01 / VISIONForward is
the point.02 / EXECUTION
the point.02 / EXECUTION
What embedded leadership looks like
Real decisions. Clear owners. Follow-through.
Mad Mouse doesn't just recommend a better way to run your agency. We take responsibility for agreed operational priorities—and build the leadership capacity to keep them moving.
01 / FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
Make the numbers actionable.
Review project budgets, service economics, utilization, and margins before small problems become expensive ones.
02 / TEAM LEADERSHIP
Give ownership a home.
Run leadership rhythms, clarify decision rights, coach managers, and hold the right people accountable for outcomes.
03 / DELIVERY OPERATIONS
Keep great work moving.
Coordinate priorities, improve handoffs, resolve bottlenecks, and protect delivery quality without routing every decision through the founder.
04 / CHANGE THAT LASTS
Turn decisions into habits.
Build practical workflows, reporting, and operating processes that your team understands, uses, and improves.
From insight to execution
A plan is only the beginning.
We diagnose what is holding the agency back, design an operating plan, lead implementation with the team, and optimize as the business evolves.
Explore our approach ↗Selected founder experience
25→65%
REPORTED MARGIN IMPROVEMENT · PRIOR AGENCY WORK
From better offers
to better margins.
In previous agency leadership work, Mad Mouse’s founder analyzed the service mix, prioritized stronger revenue-generating offerings, increased average deal value, and introduced project budgeting and cost controls. The agency subsequently reported profit margins improving from 25% to 65%.
Challenge / More revenue per client and tighter control of project costs.
Action / Focus on higher-value services and deals; build financial accountability into delivery.
Reported result / Margins improved from 25% to 65% across the referenced agency work.
Human-first.
Business-smart.
Business-smart.
THE PEOPLE ARE THE POINT.
How we believe good businesses work
When your people get stronger, your business does too.
Operational improvement isn't about squeezing more work out of people. It's about giving them clarity, training, trust, and the authority to do exceptional work. When teams take ownership, quality improves—and founders gain more space to lead the future.
Take care of the people doing the work. The work gets better. The business follows.
Read our philosophy ↗JRFounded by an operator
Meet the founder
Built by someone who's run the business.
Josh Russo, Founder & Principal COO
With 15+ years in creative and marketing agency leadership, Josh brings firsthand experience in the decisions founders face: which services to prioritize, how to protect project margins, how to develop people, and how to build operations that support growth.
Mad Mouse is built around that perspective: practical executive judgment, candid partnership, and leadership that stays involved in implementation.
15+ years in agency leadershipCommercial & operational experienceCreator of Verso App
A working relationship built on trust
Real authority.
Clear accountability.
We work best with owners who are ready to delegate agreed decisions, share the facts, and back their team through change.
See whether we’re a fit ↗01 /
A business with momentum.
You have clients, a capable team, and opportunities worth pursuing—but operations are holding you back.
02 /
A willingness to delegate.
You’re ready to establish clear decision rights and let trusted people own outcomes.
03 /
Candor and follow-through.
You value transparent numbers, constructive disagreement, and a shared commitment to measurable progress.
Built from real operating experience
Leadership first. Tools that help.
Verso App is our proprietary project profitability platform, created from firsthand agency operations experience. It supports financial visibility and accountability inside our engagements. The technology is a tool; the leadership is what makes the change.
Let’s build a stronger business
Give your best work a stronger business behind it.
You know what your agency can create. We help strengthen the economics, leadership, and delivery operation that make the next chapter possible.
Start with a conversation.
Tell us where your agency stands and what needs to work better. We’ll discuss whether embedded leadership is a fit before proposing an assessment.