Brandy Amidon did not begin her career expecting to help lead a creative agency. She trained as an accountant, worked in banking, and joined Brains on Fire after following a colleague she admired. Over time, her responsibilities expanded from financial work into the people and business decisions that shape an agency.
In this Founder Factor interview, Amidon describes becoming an owner and co-president alongside Ben Hart, guiding an established company through change, and facing the pandemic early in their ownership. Her account focuses on the everyday actions that help a team trust its leaders, including clear responsibilities, candid conversations, and practical support when life interrupts work.
What you'll learn.
- A leadership partnership can work well when each person has clear responsibilities and trusts the other’s judgment.
- Involve employees in change instead of assuming new owners must arrive with every answer.
- Support people through specific actions, such as shifting workloads and protecting time for family.
- Leadership can involve acting while afraid, with preparation and people who can help.
An accounting role grows into agency leadership.
Amidon joined Brains on Fire as a staff accountant in her early twenties. Compared with banking, the smaller business let her see how the whole company worked. She found that she enjoyed both the financial responsibilities and the people side of the organization.
The opportunity to become an owner arose during conversations about an original founder’s retirement. Amidon had been helping with the process when she realized she wanted a stake in the company herself. She asked Hart whether they could buy in together.
Their partnership divided responsibilities according to their strengths. Hart concentrated on creative work and branding; Amidon focused on finances, people, and the business. She describes that complementary arrangement as a source of trust and support, especially when a single day can contain both difficult news and a promising opportunity.
Honor the company’s history while planning its future.
Brains on Fire was an established agency with more than thirty years of history. Amidon and Hart had already worked alongside the team, so they entered ownership with relationships and knowledge of the culture. They also felt responsible for helping the company continue well beyond their own transition.
One early surprise was the expectation that becoming owners meant they already had a complete plan. Amidon describes having to reset that assumption. They had goals and ideas, but wanted to work through the future with the team.
They used small-group conversations to ask what people wanted to preserve, what concerned them, and what they hoped would change. The leadership team considered that input and brought a direction back to employees. The process gave people a role in shaping the transition while keeping responsibility for decisions clear.
Connect individual goals with the agency’s direction.
Following the initial transition, the team worked on goals at several levels: the individual employee, the owners, and functions such as design and strategy. This created a way to talk about what people wanted to learn and what kind of work the agency wanted to produce.
Amidon connects those discussions with purpose. People need compensation and benefits, but they also want to spend their working hours doing something they are proud of with colleagues they respect.
She says candidates often ask employees why they stay at Brains on Fire. The answer commonly centers on the people. That relationship matters across a team that includes remote employees and offices in different cities. Clients benefit when colleagues look out for one another and work well together.
Lead from your strengths and trust other specialists.
Amidon initially worried about being an owner who did not personally do the agency’s design or strategy work. New business conversations also felt intimidating because she did not see herself as a natural extrovert.
Advice from one of the founders helped her recognize strengths she already used: connecting people, building relationships, and advocating for the team. She could speak enthusiastically and credibly about work she valued without pretending to be the person who created every part of it.
Her role continued to change as she trusted a colleague to handle accounting responsibilities. That freed her to consider the company’s future staffing, culture, and growth. She describes the shift as letting go of control over details and accepting that someone else could handle them very well. For a founder or new owner, the example suggests reviewing which familiar tasks still need their direct involvement.
The pandemic tests promises about people.
Amidon and Hart had been owners for about a year when the pandemic arrived. Their plans for the company suddenly met uncertainty about how to work, support employees, and respond to changing conditions. What initially appeared temporary continued much longer.
Their message was that the team would work through difficult things together. Amidon describes being transparent about what leadership did not know, checking on employees, and trying to keep people connected as isolation created new concerns.
She believes the experience strengthened trust because employees could see whether the owners would act on the commitments they had made. It also developed trust between the two partners. The practical challenge was making decisions with incomplete information while keeping alternative plans available.
Offer support that responds to the person.
Amidon does not describe one company program as the answer to employee well-being. Much of the work happened in individual conversations and small actions: asking whether someone needed help, arranging dinner when children were sick, or moving design work when a colleague needed to care for a relative.
The team also tried to pause and recognize good work. In a busy agency, a finished project can immediately give way to the next deadline. Celebrating the result creates a moment for people to notice what they accomplished together.
Support includes room to step out for a therapy appointment or deal with a personal loss. Amidon wants employees to know that asking for that room does not mean abandoning colleagues. Someone else can help carry the work. These examples make the company’s intention visible in ways a general statement about caring would not.
Model boundaries and make honest conversations possible.
Amidon says work should not be the most important part of employees’ lives. She applies that principle to her own schedule, blocking time to collect her daughter and be present for her. Leadership behavior helps show the team that family priorities are real.
She also describes learning to recognize stress with help from a colleague. When Amidon has trouble absorbing details, that colleague can notice the pattern and suggest slowing down or choosing a better time for the conversation. Their relationship allows them to interpret the behavior in context.
This openness still sits alongside responsibility. Leaders can acknowledge a difficult day or an unanswered question while helping the team make a plan. Amidon gives an operational example: bringing a problem to the leadership team produced a stronger approach than one or two people would have developed alone.
Take the responsibility even when it feels frightening.
Asked what makes an entrepreneur, Amidon focuses on willingness to accept risk. She questions the idea that good leaders are fearless. Ownership brought genuine worries about making mistakes, damaging an established company, and disappointing employees with families depending on them.
She moved forward with those concerns rather than waiting for them to disappear. The responsibility could also be viewed as an opportunity to care for the team and help make good decisions together.
Her version of leadership combines preparation, clear processes, and the ability to adapt. The company needs structure as it grows, but people must still be able to discuss a change in direction. A trusted partner and capable colleagues make that responsibility more manageable.
Amidon’s experience shows a path into business leadership built from existing strengths. Accounting gave her one view of the organization; relationships, ownership, and difficult decisions expanded it.
Her most practical lesson is that trust grows through repeated actions. Ask for input, define responsibilities, make room for people’s lives, and keep working through uncertainty together. Those habits give a team reasons to believe the next promise its leaders make.
