Why The Future of Growth is Human!
After attending the Pimento ‘Festival of New Business’, our Director of Growth, Alex, gives his thoughts…
Yesterday at the inaugral ‘Pimento Festival of New Business’, what became clear across every session was this: we’re at an inflection point where businesses either remember that humans drive growth, or they automate themselves into irrelevance.
People do deals with people, and thank f*** for that.
The festival format worked because it forced a question most of us avoid: what actually drives sustainable growth?The answer kept surfacing, session after session, speaker after speaker. It’s not ‘just’ the tech stack. It’s not ‘just’ the efficiency gains. It’s the relationships, the referrals, and the trust that only humans can build.
Some of the sessions I was able to attend are below, not exhaustive as there were many, included the following media heavyweights (who if you don’t know, go and find out):
Peter Boutros opened with a point that should be obvious but clearly isn’t: AI doesn’t replace the human element—it exposes how crucial it is. His insight into what CMOs actually want cut through the usual automation hype. They’re not buying tools. They’re buying partners who understand that behind every metric is a person making sensible business decisions, using tools to get to the answers.
“Get the AI to work WITH YOU not instead of you” Peter exclaimed passionately more than once at a rather wind-blasted front row.
At Mostly Media, this is something we’ve been banging on about internally more than once of late; optimisation is pointless if you’re optimising away the very things that make clients want to work with you and crucially, customers want to buy from you. What’s the point in optimising for a B2B client on TikTok over LinkedIn just because you can, or the machine says? Do the sums work? Does it make sense?
Sometimes, when I sit in pitches from media owners my mind drifts to the same scepticism every time; ‘yeah, but what would that sell really?’; it’s a mantra now and one to ask every decision we make when planning. Even for brand awareness!
Brian Jacobs / Marcus Elliott Brown
The panel on ‘new business problems’ brought up something we don’t talk about enough: the power of saying no. Not every pitch is worth chasing. Not every client is the right client. Brian and Marcus made the case that strategic no’s create space for the right yes’s.
This matters for growth because we’ve confused activity with progress. Saying yes to everything doesn’t build a business—it might even dilute it. The agencies getting strong referrals aren’t the ones chasing everything; they’re the ones being deliberate about who they work with and how.
George King scaled the Shard without safety equipment. He talked about fear and mindset when the stakes were literal life and death. The subtext was clear; most of what we call “risk” in business is manufactured anxiety.
Here’s what that means for growth: We’re so busy managing perceived risks that we’re not taking the actual ones that matter. Building genuine relationships requires vulnerability. Investing in people takes time. Turning down the wrong work could risk short-term revenue loss. But these are the moves that compound into referrals and reputation.
The session on the ‘power of proposition’ got real when Bethan Vincent asked the only two questions that matter as a client (sobering and so similar to my mantra) : “Will you make me look better to my board, and will you make me more money?”
No fluff. No agency theatre. This is where Mostly Media’s approach aligns with reality—clients don’t care about our process or our creativity for its own sake. They care about outcomes that make their professional lives better and that scales their business. If we can’t answer Bethan’s two questions clearly, we’re not in the conversation and shouldn’t be.
This is fundamental to referrals: people recommend agencies that made them look good and delivered results. Everything else is noise.
Ajaz Ahmed closed with a ‘simple’ thesis: his success at AKQA Group came from investing in his people. Not in a platitude way—in a genuine dedication, development, and care way. His message; be a good person.
In growth terms, this is the unsexy truth, your team’s development is your business development. The quality of your client relationships can’t exceed the quality of your internal ones. Referrals come from clients who’ve worked with people they rate. And those people only exist if you’ve invested in growing them.
Of course, on a fireside chat with Stephen Knight perhaps Ajaz was underselling the skill in his own entrepreneurial spirit (approaching BMW with the idea of a website build at the dawn of the internet and much more, go and find him).
In summary : What linked every session I attended was that business is at its best when we apply human judgement with machines, not replace humans with them. Thank f***.
Peter showed that AI amplifies the need for human connection. Brian and Marcus demonstrated that human judgement on which opportunities to pursue matters more than pursuing everything. George reminded us that the real risks are human ones—courage, vulnerability, trust. Bethan cut through to what CMOs / CEOs / CPOs (and all the C’s) actually value in business relationships.
This isn’t about being anti-technology. It’s about being clear-eyed that the competitive advantage isn’t the tech—it’s who’s using it and how AND WHY. It means showing up as humans, making clients demonstrably successful in ways their stakeholders care about, and understanding that every shortcut away from genuine relationships is a shortcut away from sustainable growth. Referrals aren’t a channel, they’re an outcome of doing right by people consistently enough that they’re willing to put their reputation behind you.
Yesterday’s festival was well-curated (credit to Stephen Knight, David Morley and Theresa Kruger at Pimento for that), and what made it valuable was the coherence of message across speakers with completely different backgrounds and expertise.
Whether it was AI strategy, pitch process, mindset work, proposition development, or leadership philosophy, the same truth kept emerging: the businesses that will win are the ones that understand technology is a tool for amplifying human connection, not replacing it. That’s not a trend. That’s fundamental. And it’s where growth actually comes from.
Credit: Alex Pilkington, Director of Growth