Knowing and Owning Your Value at Own It Summit 2025

Jean Freeman - Principal + CEO, Zambezi

I started the Own It conference for a simple reason: too few agencies are owned by women. At the time Christy Hiler and I started the conference, only 200 of 20,000 agencies in North America were female-owned. The statistics are still dismal, but improved. These days, Own It tracks 670 female-owned agencies, our LA conference attracted over 230 attendees and we keep growing our platform to amplify stories of female ownership. 

Although our theme this year was ‘Knowing and Owning Your Value’, and many panels featured heavyweight experts on how to do just that, we also grew this movement to inspire. As Christy so aptly puts it, “You have to see it to be it,” and when women owners get up on our stage to represent – and others see them thriving – their examples plant the seed with women who may rise to be the future female agency owners in our midst. 

“This room has a value of a billion dollars.” I used this rallying cry at the outset of the crowded conference in Los Angeles, held at the Team One office in January. Met with a round of applause, and some incredulous looks, I explained that it didn’t matter that I hadn’t pulled the actual financials of those gathered together in the room. It was more important that we as women boldly joined together in this valuation – to own this approach and join with me in saying, “F-yes. We are worth a billion dollars.” And that goes to the core of our message this year: encouraging women to know, and own, their value. 

Here are a few sound bytes reflecting the tips and tricks our incredible, practically all-female speakers and panelists brought to the stage, in no particular order:

  1. As creatives we are more valuable in an AI world, noted Jo McKinney of Board of Innovation. Jo encouraged women to create big idea chaos to override an algorithm.

  2. “Push past the cringe” to foster important – yet sometimes uncomfortable – conversations, Pilaar Terry of POV Agency told the group, along with declaring the press release to be “dead.” 

  3. Sell solutions not just services was the powerful message from Howard Mogs of GROUP OF HUMANS®, Norea DiNuzzo of Blood Sweat & Tears and Asmirh Davis of  Majority.

  4. Mandana Meliano from PEONY emphasized authenticity as a business practice, advising owners to be honest about their niche, competencies, and their full-time equivalent (FTE) size. This kind of transparency helps agencies attract the right client partners for success and attract the right collaborators for their teams.

  5. Jennifer McCabe-Armanino of Armanino encouraged owners to be highly strategic – even cautious – about sharing equity.  

  6. Another way agency owners must know their worth is through their legal documents and contracts, said Sharon Toerek, Esq., of Toerek Law. Sharon encouraged women to include copyright and confidentiality notices in agency proposals and pitch docs for added protection agency IP.

  7. Thought leadership PR maven Elizabeth Rosenberg pointed out that amplifying your accomplishments is not bragging and in fact, “men don’t have an issue” with owning successes and women shouldn’t either.

  8. Leave your potential clients wanting more, advised master consultant Joanne Davis. Dare to end your pitch meetings early – the end is when the magic happens.

  9. Perfectionism is our enemy, noted Danielle Kushner Smith of Wasserman. Equity is the foundation of your value, not perfection.

  10.  Curiosity Agency’s Ashley Walters and Christine Guilfoyle of SeeHer encouraged businesswomen to build inclusion and representation into everything, and ask clients in writing to do the same.

  11. Last but definitely not least in the lineup, Verb agency leaders Yadira Harrison and Shannon Jones described their incredible growth success story, which revolves around knowing their worth, asking for what they and their teams really need and building a culture where people feel seen.

If I could frame one takeaway from this motherlode of insight at Own It 2025, it would be that in advertising, in leadership roles and in entrepreneurship, women have to value themselves highly in order to rise. Though it may feel like women have to pull themselves up to succeed, they can also find supportive communities along the way: women with similar goals and motivations who can mentor, motivate, and champion them as well, so that women worth a billion dollars can all rise up together. 

Become part of the Own It community and stay up to date on future events at untilyouownit.com.