Jean Freeman — an AdAge 2025 Leading Women honoree — owns and leads one of the fastest-growing independent agencies while helping other female agency owners succeed.
Jean Freeman owns and helms one of the fastest-growing independent agencies, a massive undertaking in and of itself, while dedicating her spare time to helping more women in the industry pursue their entrepreneurial endeavors.
Last year alone, the CEO and principal of Zambezi—a title Freeman took up in 2017 after rising through the ranks since her start in 2008 and taking ownership of the agency in 2015—led the agency’s media agency to 25% year-over-year revenue growth while retaining all of its clients and adding six more. Fin Studios, its production arm, notably brought on clients ESPN and the NFL last year. In 2025, Freeman said the agency expects to grow revenue by 15%, thanks to new clients such as LPL Financial and electrolyte drink brand Liquid I.V.
Within Zambezi, Freeman, a 2025 Leading Women honoree, champions equity and reports that 62% of its staff are women.
Freeman is also the co-founder of Own It, the initiative to track and increase the number of women-owned agencies, alongside Cornett’s Christy Hiler. As a former athlete and coach, Freeman sees it as her responsibility to create a more even playing field for other women agency owners. Own It doubled its attendance at its 2025 summit in April, compared to the prior year, drawing in more than 250 women agency owners.
“I view my role as a coach, as a former athlete too,” Freeman said. “It’s really putting the right people and teams together, which takes a lot of time and strategy. It’s also pivoting off of where the marketplace is going … the investment in media that we made five years ago is proving to be a very fruitful one.”
What advice would you give to your younger self?
It’s very easy to get enamored with the brand name or the agency name on the door, but the biggest impact [on] your career is who is part of your team. So really understanding who your direct manager is, who your team is, because that is the team that is going to advocate for you when you’re not in the room. Do the research and understand how you can position yourself to be a part of the best team.
What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?
Definitely deciding to take ownership control of Zambezi in 2015. I learned a lot from the transition from leadership to ownership. It was a very quick learning curve … and success is not necessarily guaranteed. I do think our success that we have today is predicated on taking that initial big risk of jumping into the ownership chair.
If you weren’t doing your current job, what would you be doing and why?
I love being a business owner. I find business so fascinating, to learn about other industries. I coach women business owners now. I foresee that’s something I will continue to do more of in the future … but if I really could do anything that I wanted, I probably would be a youth sports coach. As a former athlete, my coaches early in my life made such a pivotal impact on me and who I am as a person. Not necessarily only as an athlete, but sports are such a great way for kids to learn about life, how to be a great teammate, how to win, how to lose, how to set a goal and work toward it.
What should the industry do to encourage more women and people of color into its ranks?
Go on your own. As we talked about earlier with the idea of Own It, it is there to give visibility and just even the possibility of entrepreneurship. A lot of people, and specifically women, think, ‘There’s no way I can do that. I don’t have the skill set to do that.’ The idea with Own It is really giving that community the confidence that you can do it.
How is AI impacting your job?
How is it not? The thing about AI is that everything is constantly evolving right now. Whoever is the most curious will win; you have to have that mentality with AI. So we’re using it in all components of our company, but we’re never going to be finished. It’s like a diversity effort: You’re never going to be done, so you have to continue to learn, push and have that constant curiosity.
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