Your Nervous System Lab

Understanding Stress for Peak Performance

In our high-pressure industry, understanding your stress response is key to protecting your wellbeing and performing at your best.

The Alliance will be joined by NABS, the advertising and media industry’s wellbeing charity, for this expert-led Lab exploring how stress affects the mind and body, why we react the way we do under pressure, and practical ways to regain balance.

Together, we’ll explore:

• Your personal stress response and triggers and that of your team/colleagues
• The Stress Curve and how pressure impacts performance and wellbeing
• What happens in the nervous system during stress
• Practical techniques to calm your system and build resilience
• Everyday habits that support long-term wellbeing

You’ll leave with a better understanding of your stress response and a practical toolkit to help you feel calmer, more in control and better equipped to navigate pressure at work and beyond.

Our speaker: Emma Pratt is an accredited executive and wellness coach for NABS alongside running her own executive coaching company, Performance Path coaching. Emma has more than 20 years of experience in people development, business, and communications thanks to her background in coaching and advertising. She specialises in helping people to become great leaders, to enhance performance in new and existing roles, and to find clarity and confidence in their careers. Emma is a member of the Association for Coaching (MAC), a registered assessor for The Institute of Leadership Management, a deliverer and assessor for The Chartered Management Institute, and a member of the Neuroscience Coaching Group.

NABS is the charity helping everyone in the advertising, marketing and media industry move forward. From hot tips when you’re ready to fly, to a helping hand when you’ve fallen down, we’ve got you. Industry events or networking? Check out their calendar. Group workshops or in-house training? Sign up to our sessions. Sounding board on promotions, redundancies, parental leave – life in general? They’ll help in ways no one else can. nabs.org.uk

Sign in/attendance to this session contributes 1 hour (1 point) towards CPD points for Alliance of Independent Agencies Members.

Beyond the pitch
Building teams where commercial thinking is everyone’s job

Many agencies treat commercial awareness as something that sits with senior people. Juniors and mid-level team members get pulled into pitches but the everyday commercial thinking, spotting opportunities with existing clients, understanding the value of what they deliver, having confident conversations about scope and fees, that’s left to someone else.

So the organic growth that’s sitting within existing client relationships often doesn’t get spotted and agencies can be slower to notice when client revenue is at risk.

The session will cover both the why and the how:

– Why commercial awareness needs to be a team-wide capability, not just a senior-level responsibility
– What actually holds junior and mid-level people back
– Practical ways to build commercial thinking into everyday work, not just pitch preparation
– How commercially aware teams are better at protecting revenue and retaining clients, not just growing it.

Anna Golding our member lead & Business Director at PrettyGreen will be joined by Emma Ewing of Big Fish Training…

Our speaker:

Emma Ewing is an internationally recognised career coach and founder of Big Fish Training, a company that has been helping PR professionals succeed for over two decades. Through her leadership, Emma and her team have equipped thousands of individuals with the skills to excel in their roles, deliver measurable results, and advance in their careers.
Emma’s practical, results-oriented approach helps people at all levels identify actionable steps to achieve better outcomes and, more importantly, leaves them and their teams feeling happier and more engaged at work. She also runs a monthly free webinar, often accompanied by expert guests, which is designed to give people a step-up with their skills.
To get in touch, please go to the Big Fish Training website or find her on LinkedIn here

CEO Summit: Open House

Thursday 15th October

For the past seven years, the Alliance has held quarterly CEO Summits, bringing together small groups of agency leaders to explore a specific challenge or opportunity with an expert in the room.

As we approach the end of 2026, we thought it was time to do something a little different: open the doors to all Alliance member CEOs and let you set the agenda.

The launch of the Alliance’s Agency Collaboration Group has seen an incredible response, with more than 100 agencies registering to take part. The appetite for independent agencies to connect, collaborate and learn from one another is clearly there.

So, for this CEO Summit, we want to hear what’s on your mind.

What is the one issue, opportunity or challenge you would most value discussing with fellow independent agency CEOs? Whether it’s AI, profitability, talent, new business, changing client relationships, business models, growth or something completely different, you tell us what should be on the table.

The Marketing Store (tms) has kindly offered to host our first CEO Summit Open House:

Date: Thursday 15th October
Time: 2.30pm–4.30pm
Venue: TMS, 16 Hatfields, London SE1 8DJ

Our industry is going through rapid change (when isn’t it?), and there is huge value in sharing experiences openly with those facing many of the same decisions and challenges.

Let’s use the collective experience in the room to help one another navigate what’s ahead for independent agencies in 2027.

Please note attendance this session contributes 2 hours (2 points) towards CPD points for Alliance of Independent Agencies Members.

Please sign up below and, when registering, tell us the ONE agenda topic you would most like to discuss with your peers.