Choosing a UK Agency During Leadership Changes

Agency leadership changes aren’t gossip—they’re operational signals.

When a major UK agency like M&C Saatchi goes through a restructure and its UK chief executive departs (as reported by Campaign), it’s a reminder of something founders learn the hard way: your marketing partner’s stability affects your growth plan. Not because people leaving automatically means the work gets worse, but because leadership shifts often trigger changes in priorities, pricing, team structure, and who actually owns your account day to day.

For startups and small businesses in the UK, January is also the moment budgets get reset, Q1 targets get handed down, and agency rosters get reviewed. If you’re picking (or renewing) an agency relationship right now, this is exactly the kind of industry signal you should know how to interpret.

Below is a practical lens for reading agency restructures—what they mean, what they don’t, and how to protect your pipeline if your agency is mid-change.

What a leadership departure actually means for clients

A leadership departure during a restructure usually means the agency is changing how it sells and delivers work. That’s the part that impacts startups.

In the M&C Saatchi story, the key detail isn’t the name on the door. It’s the phrase “ongoing restructure” and the note that a leader will confirm the UK leadership structure later. That sequence typically signals:

• Account ownership may shift (new P&L owners, new department heads, new rules).
• The agency may consolidate teams (fewer specialists dedicated to each client).
• New commercial targets appear (pressure to increase retainers or add services).
• Process changes land on clients (new reporting, new briefing templates, new approval gates).

None of this is inherently bad. Some restructures fix messy delivery and improve consistency. But the risk for startups is simple: you don’t have time to be collateral damage while an agency reorganises.

The myth: “Big agency = safer”

Most companies get this wrong. They assume a big brand name means low risk.

The reality is that big agencies can be more exposed to internal change: leadership reshuffles, office mergers, global alignment projects, and margin pressures often land quickly across teams. Startups feel it first because they’re rarely the biggest fee line.

If you’re a UK small business buying digital marketing services—SEO, paid social, performance creative, content—your real risk isn’t “will the agency survive?” It’s:

Will the people doing the work still be there in 90 days—and will they still care about my account?

How restructures change outcomes in small business digital marketing

Restructures change three things that directly influence performance marketing: strategy continuity, speed, and accountability.

1) Strategy continuity: the hidden cost of churn

When leadership changes, it often triggers a “re-think.” That sounds smart until you realise what it does to execution.

A common restructure pattern is: new leader arrives → new positioning → new planning framework → every team updates the story. If you’re in a growth sprint, that can mean:

• Your SEO roadmap gets paused while the agency “revalidates” keyword strategy
• Your paid media account is “restructured” (sometimes useful, sometimes chaos)
• Your messaging framework gets rewritten—again

Startups don’t need constant reinvention. They need compounding wins.

2) Speed: approvals slow down when org charts change

During transitions, decisions get escalated because nobody wants to be blamed. That’s when:

• Launches slip by a week… then another
• Creative gets stuck in internal reviews
• Media spend isn’t scaled even when CPA is strong

For UK small businesses, speed matters because auctions change fast (especially Meta and Google), and seasonal moments don’t wait. If you miss Valentine’s, Easter, or summer sale timing, you don’t get it back.

3) Accountability: who owns the number?

The best agency relationships have one clear answer to one clear question:

“If we miss pipeline targets this month, who is accountable and what changes by next week?”

Restructures blur that answer. You might hear:

• “That’s handled by another team now.”
• “We’re hiring for that role.”
• “We’re aligning reporting across the group.”

Those aren’t excuses. They’re signals.

A practical checklist: how to evaluate agency stability before you sign

If an agency is restructuring, you can still hire them—but you must underwrite the risk. Here’s what I’d ask in the first two calls.

Ask about team reality, not org chart promises

You want names, roles, and time allocation.

1. Who is my day-to-day lead and who is their backup?
2. How many accounts does that person manage? (If it’s 8–12, expect slow response.)
3. Which work is in-house vs freelance vs offshore?
4. What happens if my lead leaves? (Listen for a real process, not vibes.)

Ask for proof of process under pressure

Startups need predictable delivery.

• Show me the last three monthly performance reports you sent a client (redact data).
• What’s your typical brief-to-launch timeline for paid campaigns?
• What’s the escalation path when something breaks?

A good answer is specific: “48 hours for creative iteration, weekly optimisation cadence, daily pacing checks.”

Ask directly about restructure impact

This is uncomfortable, but it saves you.

• What’s changing in the UK business right now?
• Which capabilities are being merged or centralised?
• Will my contract be novated to another entity/team?

If they can’t explain it clearly, you’ll feel that confusion later.

How to protect your startup if your agency changes leadership mid-contract

You can’t control agency churn, but you can control your exposure. These clauses and habits are the difference between a temporary wobble and a quarter lost.

Build a “continuity pack” from day one

Make it easy for a new team to take over without resetting strategy.

Your continuity pack should include:

• Target customer + ICP notes (real, not generic)
• Offer, pricing, and margin constraints
• Brand voice, do/don’t examples
• Channel KPIs (CAC, payback, lead quality definition)
• Access list (Google Ads, GA4, Search Console, Meta, CRM)
• Campaign calendar and testing log

If you’re doing British small business digital marketing seriously, the testing log is gold. It stops the “let’s try this headline again” loop.

Put accountability in writing

Two contract ideas that work well for startups:

• Named team clause: your account lead and specialist roles are named in the SOW.
• Change-of-team right: if key roles change, you can exit with 30 days’ notice.

You’re not being difficult. You’re protecting momentum.

Own the measurement layer

If the agency controls tracking, they control the narrative.

At minimum, ensure:

• GA4 and Google Tag Manager are owned by your business
• CRM fields for lead source are defined and enforced
• A single “north star” report exists (even a simple Looker Studio view)

This is especially important if an agency restructure changes reporting standards. You don’t want your core KPIs to get redefined halfway through the year.

What startups can learn from M&C Saatchi’s restructure (without overreacting)

The smartest takeaway isn’t “avoid agencies in flux.” It’s “choose partners who can stay consistent while they change.”

Here’s the stance I take: restructures are normal in agencies, especially as they respond to shifting client demand (more performance accountability, more content volume, more AI-assisted production, tighter procurement). The win for startups is learning to spot whether an agency’s change will make them sharper—or distract them.

Green flags during a restructure

• They proactively explain changes and timelines
• They introduce you to the people doing the work early
• They keep reporting stable and improve it incrementally
• They’re honest about what they won’t do (scope discipline)

Red flags during a restructure

• Your account becomes “a small part of a bigger transformation”
• Senior people sell, juniors deliver, and nobody owns the result
• They push new services without linking to your funnel
• They can’t articulate what success looks like in 30/60/90 days

Quick Q&A founders ask when agencies reshuffle

Will leadership changes affect my SEO results?

Yes, indirectly. SEO depends on consistent execution over months. If a restructure causes strategy resets or delivery gaps, rankings and organic lead flow usually lag.

Should I pause paid media during an agency transition?

Not automatically. If performance is stable, keep spend steady but tighten controls: daily budgets, clear CPA/ROAS guardrails, and weekly creative refreshes.

Is an in-house hire safer than an agency?

Sometimes, but not always. A single hire is also a single point of failure. For many UK startups, the best setup is one strong in-house owner plus specialist agency support.

Where this fits in the “British Small Business Digital Marketing” playbook

This series is about growth that’s repeatable on a UK small business budget—SEO foundations, paid social discipline, content that converts, and measurement you can trust.

Agency selection belongs in that same toolkit. Your marketing partner is part of your operating system. When their operating system updates, you need to know whether it’s a patch—or a full reboot.

If you’re reviewing agencies this quarter, treat leadership news like this as a prompt to run a proper due diligence check: team continuity, process proof, measurement ownership, and exit options. You’ll make better choices, and you’ll sleep better when the industry shifts again.

What’s the one part of your marketing you can’t afford to pause for 30 days—and does your current agency setup protect it?