Taking Production Management Consulting to the Next Level

The Lakehouse partners who advise and guide our clients are among the best in the industry.

Leading this pack is our chief operating officer, J. Francisco Escobar. Francisco broke new ground at Texas Instruments, blending financial management expertise with innovative marketing insight. Since leaving TI, he’s partnered with top agencies and holding companies, as well as marketers like Coca-Cola, State Farm, Novartis and Lowe’s. 

Q> Why Lakehouse? What made you want to join this team?

J. Francisco> There are lots of client issues that I feel Lakehouse is uniquely positioned to tackle as Production Management Consultants. We are truly an industry disruptor – there is no other intermediary that exists between marketers and their respective agencies that is applying our level of third-party supply base analysis and management to the content production process.

What we offer is a solution to the unintended consequences of production decoupling and in-housing that has accelerated over the last 20 years.  Getting to underlying issues and finding practical solutions that can evolve with our client’s needs, is really what this is all about; using the same kind rigor we would to manage the end-to-end supply base and applying it to the production process. 

Q> How does your experience help our clients improve their process and relationships?

J. Francisco> I've always believed in optimizing relationships between clients and their agencies; it’s really the only lasting way to improve productivity.  This is what Lakehouse is all about, building bridges so everyone can benefit and deliver their best.  I believe we are ideally situated between clients, agencies, and production suppliers, to bring real tangible value to the mix. We have expertise, we have objectivity, and we have appropriate bandwidth.

I’ve worked with many clients helping them to improve relationships with their agencies and even helped some select production consultants, so in addition to making sure the Lakehouse team has the resources it needs to deliver, I aim to bolster the business case for taking action.

Q> What can we do that no one else can do? And how does our mix of partners facilitate this capability?

J. Francisco> Lakehouse Partners is the only management consultancy focused on marketing production. Ours is an agile team specifically designed to address the changing production landscape and help our clients win the future. We believe lasting improvement is only possible when everyone wins, therefore we are the only consultancy that does work for advertisers, agencies and production suppliers. 

Q> You have helped define marketing procurement, setting standards to guide the financial folks through the maze of production. How will this expertise help Lakehouse better advise its clients?

J. Francisco> Well, clearly marketers’ needs are changing constantly. We address their immediate content concerns, while taking a 30,000 foot view of their marketing spend and business needs, and aligning those to their company’s purpose.

When you look at the marketing communications services landscape, at its core is creativity. As I like to say “we are not in the advertising business, but rather firstly, in the business of advertising.”  However, it’s equally true you have to be a healthy business first, in order to flourish and do good work.

I like to think that someone like me – essentially a bean counter who totally ‘gets’ marketing – is a rare breed indeed, and is an important part of our talent mix, particularly in light of the growth and influence of Corporate Marketing Procurement. The combination of my time on and consulting for the client side, and my experience supporting agencies and holding companies, is one of the key differentiators that gives Lakehouse Partners our ability to properly and consistently optimize relationships and value.