By Alice Callaghan, Co-Founder, We Are Truly
“Female-owned agency” is a phrase that gets used a lot. It sits neatly in bios and award entries. But I have often wondered what it actually means in practice, beyond a line on a website.
When my sister and I founded We Are Truly, we did not sit down and declare that we were building a female-owned agency. We set out to build an agency that worked differently. The fact that it would be female-led felt natural to us, but the values underpinning it were intentional.
From day one, we wanted to build something rooted in clarity, trust and calm expertise.
Leadership style is the difference
In marketing, particularly in SEO and technical disciplines, there is often a culture of noise. Big claims. Aggressive growth language. Performance framed as dominance. It is not inherently male, but it has historically been male-shaped.
We wanted to create an environment where strategic thinking outweighed bravado. Where clients felt educated rather than overwhelmed. Where saying “we do not know yet” was seen as thoughtful, not weak.
That is what being female-owned means to me in practice. It is not about exclusion. It is about tone, leadership style and how decisions are made.
There is a lot of discussion right now about the lack of female input at the top of government, politics and business. What strikes me is that the conversation often focuses on numbers, how many women are in the room, rather than what changes when they are.
In my experience, female leadership often brings a different pace. More collaboration. More listening. More willingness to interrogate assumptions before charging ahead. That does not make it softer. In fact, I would argue it makes it more resilient.
Building growth without losing principles
Running a female-owned agency has meant prioritising long-term thinking over short-term wins. It has meant building sustainable growth models rather than chasing scale at any cost. It has meant creating a culture where flexibility and ambition coexist, because many women know firsthand that rigid systems exclude talented people.
Of course, ideals are easy at the beginning. Growth tests them.
As we have expanded, taken on larger clients and faced the realities of cash flow, hiring and delivery pressure, there have been moments where the market pulls you toward more traditional agency behaviours. Faster. Louder. Bigger. The temptation to overpromise. The pressure to compete on volume.
Founding principles get challenged not because they are flawed, but because growth demands efficiency and confidence.
The discipline has been in holding our nerve. In remembering that our differentiation is not just our skillset, SEO and content working together, but how we show up. We do not want to replicate the agency models we once found exhausting. We want to prove there is another way to build authority.
Why representation still matters
Being a female co-founder also carries a subtle responsibility. Visibility matters. When women lead technical agencies, it challenges the outdated assumption that strategy and search are male domains. When female founders speak publicly about confidence, risk and ambition, it widens what leadership looks like.
But it is important that we do not reduce female-owned businesses to moral symbols. We are commercial enterprises. We aim to grow. We aim to win work. We aim to compete. The difference is that we refuse to believe growth must come at the cost of culture or integrity.
If there is a single principle that has survived every stage of our growth, it is this: expertise does not need to shout to be powerful.
Perhaps that is the quiet shift female leadership can bring. Not a dramatic overhaul. Not a headline-grabbing revolution. But a steady recalibration of what strength looks like in business.
And maybe that is exactly what the current leadership landscape is missing.
