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Tom O’Keefe: Leadership in advertising and Heartwiring a creative culture

Tom O’Keefe is the founder and CEO of O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul, a creative advertising agency located in Chicago’s West Loop. OKRP is the 2015 recipient of Advertising Age’s prestigious Small Agency of the Year Award. Tom is a creative leader who’s never been shy about saying his job is to deliver results to clients. 

He’s been behind transformational campaigns for Taco Bell, Amazon.com and MillerCoors, among many others, and currently applies his style of rigorous creativity to O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul’s clients every day. He believes great work is about feeling, that every message should be musical (even when it’s not a song), and creative awards are more fun when earned, not chased. Over his career, he’s earned awards to demonstrate success at all measures.

Learn about how Tom Heartwires a creative culture while hardwiring success for his clients on this episode of the David Novak Leadership Leadership Podcast with host, David Novak.

Download this Action Journal



This great resource will help you along the way, during or after you listen to the podcast. Not only will you get to know our guest, you will be asked tough questions to really spearhead your journey to becoming a better leader! And look below for more insights and clips!!

Shareable Insights

From Podcast Action Journal
Tom shows how one can build a career in one place. He worked in the same organization for several years and built many great relationships. While this method will work for some, it won’t work for all. Tom recommends abiding by your natural way of operating. Do what seems right for you and be comfortable in that.
(14:50-15:48)

Do you think it’s realistic for leaders to build their careers in one place, or should they gain experience by working for different organizations?
How would you describe your natural way of operating?

Tom says leaders need to be open-minded and self-aware. Sometimes leaders struggle with knowing their strengths and weaknesses, and knowing that they don’t always have the answers.
(27:51-29:32)

Which describes you more: open-minded or self-aware?
Identify your weaknesses. How can your team fill in those areas of weaknesses?

By David Novak

David’s passion is to make the world a better place by developing leaders at all ages through David Novak Leadership, his family’s Lift-a-Life Foundation, Lead4Change, Global Game Changers and The Novak Leadership Institute at the University of Missouri.

Novak has been recognized as “2012 CEO of the Year” by Chief Executive magazine, one of the world’s “30 Best CEOs” by Barron’s, one of the “Top People in Business” by FORTUNE and one of the “100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World” by Harvard Business Review…