How GUT Miami’s Founder and Creative Chairman fosters a creative environment for his award-winning team

Anselmo Ramos and his team recently scooped four D&AD Pencils for Heinz’s Hidden Spots, teaming up with top streamers to map out snack-safe zones in Call of Duty. It won accolades for its innovative use of talent and influencers. Here, the Founder and Creative Chairman of GUT Miami, whose own passion for advertising was sparked by comics, films and TV as a child, tells D&AD how creative leaders can foster an environment of success for their teams, and what leadership really takes. 

“We use creativity and processes to help our clients' businesses to sell more,  generate awareness or build a brand long term… There is a goal, there's a brief and there are KPIs,” Ramos explains. “The sooner a creative understands that, the better and the faster the creative will be ready to become a leader.”

It’s about giving your team the right tools to come up with the ideas they need to deliver the best they can for the client and this means creating just the right environment for them to thrive. Taking the temperature of the room, reading the mood of the team and the direction of the project is key when leading a group of creatives. 

“A creative leader needs to inspire other creatives to be the best they can be, to inspire them to dream big and to foster an environment where ideas can thrive.”

Ramos likes to Tweet about GUT’s goals and it drives his team crazy sometimes, but for him sharing a goal increases your chances of translating it into a reality. It’s about putting yourself into that uncomfortable space of having the pressure of everyone knowing that you have a dream or an intention and using that pressure to push yourself to succeed. 

“It makes me very uncomfortable but basically, if we say it publicly, we need to deliver on it. You know, and we may be able to deliver and we may not, but it’s an eternal pursuit. I think it's very important to have a goal. Ramos also says sharing his goals with his team is essential to his leadership style. He recommends writing down goals and sharing them as much as possible to help fuel a team’s ambition.

When Ramos and his partner Gaston Bigio set up GUT Miami it was a leap, and there is no greater step to leadership than running your own business. They needed a challenge so they took the chance and set up on their own. 

“It's like with zero clients with zero talent, we had to find new clients, we had to find new talent. It was from scratch…I think that was the hardest moment when we made the decision,” says Ramos. “Then after you make the decision, it's just a lot of work and a lot of energy. But the moment that you decide to jump, that was, that was the hardest moment in our careers.”

Both Ramos and Bigio were comfortable where they were but wanted a challenge beyond the work they were doing. Everything was going well but the next steps were not clear.  “Just being independent we have more freedom to operate and do whatever the hell we want. But that was a really gutsy decision. That was what that was four years ago, Gut just turned four in April.”

Not everyone is a leader and some people just love coming up with ideas –  the currency of advertising.  “You are a copywriter and one day you wake up, and — congratulations, you’re a  creative director now and you'll learn by doing.” 

“It’s not for everyone,” says Ramos, and that’s ok “but if you decide that creative leadership is for you then give it everything you have, take risks, make mistakes, learn from them and reach for the stars. Put yourself in uncomfortable positions, because if you're comfortable doing something then you already know how to do it but when you put yourself in uncomfortable positions it’s often because you’re doing something new.”

This is part of D&AD's Creative Leader Interview series. Read more insights from top creative leaders here.