What does a creative agency look like when you finally map its talents? Square 44, a Bangkok-based branding and packaging design agency since the mid-2000s, serves consumer brands across 16 Asian markets and has been a Thinkergy partner since 2009. As founder Mathijs Aliet prepared an ambitious growth strategy, he sensed a gap. The agency had little awareness of which talents it actually had, and not everyone seemed well aligned with their role or happy with what they were asked to do.

Guided by TIPS, we profiled all 30 team members and mapped them across four business teams: business development, client service, creative, and admin and finance. On November 4, 2024, we brought the results to life in a one-day TIPS Talent & Innovator Profiling Workshop in Bangkok. The defining moment came in the TIPS Lineup Game, when everyone lined up by thinking style. Only four Figure thinkers stood on the left. Six stood in the middle being balanced Figure and Fantasy thinkers. Everyone else crowded toward the Fantasy end on the right. For a creative agency, that was hardly a surprise, but seeing it in the room made the concentration impossible to miss. The TIPS Team Profiles Map told the same story: eight Ideators clustered in one corner, flanked by Promoters and Partners, while the Organizer and Technocrat fields stayed completely empty. In other words, Square 44 was overflowing with great ideas but short on the people who make sure they get done, and the backend runs smoothly.

Talent awareness quickly turned into action. Square 44 hired a personal assistant for the founder, an All-Rounder leaning toward Organizer, filling the empty space on the map. The office manager, an Ideator who had been holding a detail-heavy operational role, moved into a client-facing position that plays to her big-picture energy. A long-serving graphic designer turned out to be a tech-savvy Conceptualizer, and he now drives Square 44’s AI integration and rollout across the company. Today, Square 44 uses TIPS for key recruitment decisions.

Interestingly, this project was also a creative exchange between long-time friends and partners. While TIPS made Square 44’s talents visible, Square 44’s designers crafted Thinkergy’s new brand identity. Each side gave the other what it does best. The workshop video captures the energy of the day better than words can.

Do you lead a talented team, yet sense that some people sit in the wrong seats, or that some seats are missing altogether? Contact us to find out how TIPS may help you make your talents visible, spot the gaps in your team’s composition, and align every role with the energy it needs.