Operating Model
How Digital & Growth resources, buys, and runs — no retainers, one execution engine, agent-augmented roles. Consolidated from the resourcing/org/agents reference (Aug 2026) and the Verto SOW v1.2.
The model in one line
Everything goes project-based: zero fixed retainers anywhere, spend attaches to output (no invoice without a deliverable behind it), a roster instead of a vendor (agencies and contractors compete for work through RFP/RFQ bidding), and strategy and the scorecard stay in-house — no vendor produces the reporting that grades its own work.
Commercial terms
Every engagement moves to Redis paper, which secures 10-to-30-day termination for convenience on every line. Work is planned, tracked, and reviewed at the hour level, so output is visible before the invoice arrives. Every purchase request goes through Zip. Contractors get individual Redis emails and Okta access — no shared logins (ratified Aug 27).
The core switch
| Out | In |
|---|---|
| Outshine — one lane (paid advertising) on a fixed retainer, ends Aug 31 | VertoDigital — seven named people across six focus areas on a monthly bank of hours (200 hrs), from Sep 1 |
The six Verto focus areas are the program's own lanes: paid search · paid social · signal orchestration · data & analytics · SEO/AEO · digital & growth agents. Hours are aimed monthly on a scoping sheet and aligned quarterly; the fee never moves. 6sense joins the switch as the signal backbone (marketing term, 100 segments) — funded inside the budget, no incremental ask.
Budget
The shape, not the dollars (figures live in the H2 resourcing sheet, leads only): today's baseline steps down to a lower steady state by December, under the original repurposing target, with every pre-existing cost itemized honestly. What the money buys: six agency areas plus a dedicated account manager, six named contractor lines, the 6sense platform, and a standing flex-capacity line deployed monthly through the bidding roster. The ramp never spikes — start dates are phased so every month lands on the same total.
Transition timeline
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Aug 31 | Outshine ends — hard stop; keep-the-lights-on plans for Google Search + LinkedIn handed to Verto |
| September | Verto live (Sep 1) · roster coordination folds into Ops Support (Keith) · Kevin hands CMS publishing off Sep 30, bridged by Stalin + Verto hours |
| October | Woolly Mammoth notice Oct 1, exit Oct 31 — after the platform launch; launch-month testing rides Verto's bank |
| November | GrowthX ends · Growth Specialist, Experimentation (TBH) · Digital Media & Content Specialist (Nov 1) · Full Stack Developer 1 joins Stalin |
| December | 6sense new term starts as GrowthX spend fully releases — the engine runs at steady state |
| Throughout | Grazitti continues Marketo/lifecycle builds on the MOPs budget |
Org shape
Nash (Director, Digital Marketing) → three pillars plus shared ops: Alexis (Sr Manager, Digital Marketing — paid, ads, video, distribution) running the Verto paid/data specialists and the content specialist line · Sr Manager, Growth Marketing (TBH — Ian's backfill) owning lifecycle, CRO, experimentation and the absorbed PLG scope, running the Verto signal + SEO/AEO specialists · Scott (Sr Manager, Web Engineering & Digital Experience) running the two-seat web team and content manager · Ops Support (reports to Andy, VP Ops; sprint-managed via Scott) — Josh (AI Engineer), Keith (Marketing Ops + roster coordination), Adnan (analytics execution), and the Verto agent workflow builder.
The agent operating model
Every role runs agent-augmented — the 79-agent catalog on the Agent List is the reference index, owner-mapped to the org above. All six committed builds now carry full agent briefs — owner, guardrails, metrics, and build plan per agent, riding the AI Agent Build project:
- Month 1 — V1 Agent Platform · Content Creation for Website · Reporting Agent (Snowflake MCP)
- Month 2 — Paid Media Optimization · Campaign Creation (all channels)
- Month 3 — Website + CRO, plus governance and cost controls program-wide
And the model isn't theoretical — the Lead Agent runs in production today: Marketo intake → Basecamp orchestration → Glean package → Gong Engage, with fail-closed policy gates and human-in-the-loop flows. Its full architecture doc lives in this hub, verbatim.
Everyone scopes their own agents the same way: copy `content/agent-briefs/_TEMPLATE.md`, fill in the nine sections, and the brief replaces that agent's one-liner on the catalog. Two daily-owner assignments remain open before V1 ships: the reporting agent and the CRO agent (lands with the Sr Manager backfill).
Reconciliation notes (flagged during consolidation)
- The fifteen H2 project briefs are archived (2026-08-27, `archive/hub-briefs/` in the repo). Only project titles carry forward — as the five distinct workstreams and the "Absorbs" lineage flags. Nothing in this hub sources from brief content.
- This model supersedes the July agency-to-contractor plan (the role-for-role conversion table in the Hub export) — the anchor-agency-plus-contractors shape replaced pure contractor conversion.
- Memo 08's July platform ratification (warehouse + Clay, legacy intent tooling retiring) is superseded by the 6sense purchase; the orchestration stack is 6sense + Apollo + Pocus + Outreach, with the warehouse still the reporting source of truth.
- The Hub's 70-agent area-grouped catalog reconciles into the 79 owner-mapped agents shown here (Nash's 10 leadership agents added; Localization/i18n agent dropped in the newer source). Name drift between the two sources ("xeo-lab" vs "aeo-lab"/"vec-lab", "Identity" vs "Identify") follows the newer export.
Updating this hub
Content lives in the GitHub repo under `/content` — CSVs for the tables (projects, agents, plays, team) and markdown for these pages. Edit in the GitHub web UI, open a PR, review the Vercel preview, merge to deploy. The Project List additionally supports bulk updates from the roadmap spreadsheet export — see the repo README for the column mapping.