What It Takes to Keep a Business Steady AND Growing During Your Hardest Year with Em Sparrow

In every founder’s career, they’re going to go through something huge in their personal lives.

But how do you not let it affect your team?

Today I’m sitting down with Em Sparrow, founder of the creative agency Sparo Studios.

2025 was a huge year for Em. Behind the scenes, Em was navigating a full business restructure, cash flow pressure, team changes, and a divorce… all while continuing to grow her agency and retain her A Players.

So how did she do it?

You’ll hear:

0:00 - Why Em’s first hires failed (and what she realised too late about her leadership at the time)

2:18 - The moment Em recognised she was the problem and what she did next to turn her business around

4:41 - How Em scaled her creative agency without losing creativity OR burning her out

9:06 - How to set standards in the creative world when you can’t rely on normal KPIs

11:55 - What changed when Em removed the office and went fully remote

14:28 - How to build culture across offshore and remote teams

18:44 - The values Em hires for that are just as critical as hiring for talent

21:06 - How Em went through a personal crisis without the team ever realising it was happening

24:12 - What happened when Sparo had to pivot its offer super quickly to keep up + did she involve the team in the decision?

27:40 - Why some people left during the restructure, and how Em processed the guilt

30:18 - Real talk: cash flow in project based agencies

37:15 - How Sparrow trains designers to critically assess their own work and take responsibility for their own development

40:52 - The systems Em has put in place that makes hard conversations easier

47:38 - The biggest leadership mistake Em sees founders make early on

50:29 - How Em empowers her team to lead without her

54:11 - If Em had to rebuild from scratch, these are first three hires she’d make and why

Want to work with Em and her team at Sparo Studios? Visit www.sparostudios.com. Or head over to IG @sparostudios

If you want help building your offshore team, send me a message over at @jesswhatman_agentsync - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/jesswhatman_agentsync/⁠

Not sure what you could delegate or the next role you need? Ask Andy - https://agentsync.com.au/meet-andy Find out more about off-shore employees over at ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agentsync_/⁠ and ⁠https://agentsync.com.au/⁠ And see behind the scenes content over at https://www.instagram.com/built.to.lead.podcast/ AgentSync