Iain Russell & Project WoW
Business & Digital Transformation Director | AI-Enabled Operating Models
I'm Iain Russell, Founder & Business Transformation Director at Project WoW. I help organisations redesign how they operate as AI changes the economics of work. I work with founders, CEOs and leadership teams when the business has reached a point where its current operating model, delivery approach or technology is starting to hold it back.
My work spans business transformation, operating model design, AI-enabled ways of working and commercial improvement, with a strong focus on turning strategy into practical change. I work through consultancy, interim and fractional engagements, and permanent leadership roles where the fit is right.
My Background
I bring over 20 years of leadership experience across MD, COO, CTO and transformation roles in agencies, digital businesses and knowledge-led services, spanning content production, software, marketing services, eCommerce and B2B digital platforms. I have led and scaled teams and organisations of 30 to 300 people.
I started my career as a multimedia designer and developer before moving into delivery, operations and eventually senior leadership.
That journey matters because my experience spans creative, operational, commercial and technical disciplines. I understand agencies and digital businesses from the work itself through to the systems, teams and leadership structures needed to deliver it successfully.
Over the years, I’ve led businesses through growth, turnaround, operating model transformation, digital transformation, restructuring and major changes in delivery.
That includes transforming agency profitability, scaling businesses, redesigning operating models and leading complex digital and AI-enabled transformation programmes, with client work for global brands including Coca-Cola, Unilever, Ford, Pfizer, Specsavers and Tesco.
Why I Set Up Project WoW
After decades inside agencies and digital businesses, I saw the same pattern repeatedly:
Businesses rarely struggle because they lack talent or ambition. They struggle because the way the business works has not evolved as quickly as the business itself.
Teams grow. New services are added. Clients expect more. Technology changes. Processes multiply. Leadership becomes stretched. And now AI is changing the economics of the work itself.
Eventually, the operating model that helped build the business starts getting in its way.
I created Project WoW to help organisations navigate those moments of change.
The aim is not simply to diagnose problems or produce a transformation roadmap. It is to work alongside leadership and teams to design a better way of operating and help make that change real.
I help agencies rediscover the “wow” in what they do by:
- Removing operational friction
- Breaking down silos
- Strengthening leadership and accountability
- Redesigning delivery and ways of working
- Improving margin, utilisation and commercial visibility
- Redesigning roles and workflows around AI, not just adding tools
- Building operating models that can adapt and scale
Transformation should create momentum rather than more complexity.
Track Record & Expertise
Throughout my career, I’ve delivered measurable change across:
- Business and operating model transformation
- Digital transformation and AI-enabled delivery
- Profitability, margin and commercial performance
- Leadership alignment and organisational design
- Delivery predictability and project flow
- Agile and Lean ways of working
- Technology, workflow and automation
- Culture, collaboration and cross-functional teams
- Agency growth, turnaround and transition
My experience includes directing the transformation of Clarity Global's UK digital practice, uniting disciplines from acquired agencies into one operating model; redesigning the Digital & Technology operating model at Ride Shotgun; leading global transformation programmes at WPP/Hogarth; connecting marketing, sales and technology at Neos Networks; and delivering major agency turnarounds at Gene Commerce and Reactive.
At Gene Commerce, I helped grow revenue by 40% while moving net profit margin from 0% to 20%. At Reactive, I doubled UK revenue and increased net profit margin from 10% to 25%. At Ride Shotgun, AI-enabled workflows cut production time by up to 60% and production costs by 30%. At Unipro, I helped scale the business to more than £8m turnover.
How I Work
I describe myself as a meta-practitioner: someone who draws on proven approaches but adapts them to the realities of the organisation rather than applying a methodology mechanically.
The Project WoW Framework brings together principles from:
- The First 90 Days – establishing clarity, alignment and momentum quickly
- Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) – creating accountability, focus and operating rhythm
- AgencyAgile – improving collaboration, context and decision-making in complex agency environments
- Agile & Lean – shortening feedback loops, reducing waste and improving delivery
- Dual Transformation – balancing the performance of today's business with the capabilities needed for tomorrow
- AI-enabled operating models – informed by McKinsey's Rewired – focusing technology and AI where the value is greatest and building the capabilities to scale it
The framework provides structure, but it is not a rigid playbook.
Every organisation has different clients, people, commercial pressures, capabilities and ambitions. My role is to understand that context, identify what will create the most meaningful change and then help leadership and teams make it happen.
Diagnose what needs to change. Design the future model. Mobilise the transformation. Embed new ways of working.
The goal is not to make your organisation dependent on Project WoW.
It is to leave it stronger, more capable and better equipped to keep improving after I step away.