TL;DR

Darkroom has hired Liza Ramos - formerly Director of Recruiting at Droga5 - as Director of People. Ramos will build a people function that balances creative excellence with retention and operational rigor, creating the recruiting, onboarding and development systems necessary for an agency scaling a unified AI workspace and high-performance creative teams.

Why this hire matters

Agencies are people's businesses. Talent quality, retention and how teams are onboarded determine whether creative systems, productized services and AI tooling actually deliver revenue. Darkroom’s decision to hire Liza is a deliberate bet: systemize recruiting and retention so senior creative and technical expertise compounds over time, rather than leaking out through churn. That’s a strategic lever that accelerates the agency’s AI-native operating model and preserves the senior-led, experiment-driven culture clients pay for.

Liza Ramos - the profile fit for creative scale

Liza arrives with deep experience scaling talent inside elite creative organizations and fast-growth brands:

• Droga5 / Accenture Song: As Director of Recruiting she led full-cycle hiring across Droga5 and ConcentricLife, partnering with senior leadership to staff high-impact creative teams across markets and specialities.

• Agency & brand experience: Senior people and talent leadership roles at Mekanism and Nutrafol give her both creative-side and brand-side hiring perspective.

• Systems builder: Her background shows an emphasis on recruiting engines and structured hiring processes that support creative excellence at scale - exactly the discipline an agency needs when it’s pairing human talent with AI-native tooling.

Her stated approach - building “a hiring and team experience that feels both high-performing and deeply human” - signals the balance Darkroom needs: rigorous hiring standards and career architecture, delivered with empathy and clarity.

What Liza will own (and what to expect)

Liza’s remit is straightforward but high-leverage: create the people systems that let Darkroom scale without losing its creative bar.

1) Recruit and hire to a standard
Build an engine that consistently sources and screens candidates who fit Darkroom’s pace, craft standards and AI-first operating model. Expect more structured briefs, calibrated role profiles, and candidate scorecards that map to both creative skill and systems thinking.

2) Onboarding and development
Define onboarding that converts senior hire energy into immediate impact: ramp plans tied to outcomes, early experiments, and mentorship paths. Design role ladders and development plans so performance is visible, rewarded and promotable from within.

3) Retention and culture by design
Operationalize retention as a product: career paths, feedback loops, and role clarity. Darkroom’s leadership sees retention as a leading indicator of culture; Liza will make that a measurable program - not an aspiration.

4) Scale with intent
As Darkroom pursues its 2026 mission of building an AI-native advertising agency, Liza will align hiring and people ops to product roadmaps and commercial priorities. That means prioritizing hires that unblock key product and client outcomes (AI engineers, creative leads, commerce operators) and building governance that prevents churn as the company grows.

Why this is strategic for clients and for the agency

Darkroom’s model pairs senior growth teams with an AI-driven commerce layer. That product requires people who can do three things at once: think commercially, ship creative systems, and operate with AI-assisted workflows. Hiring at scale without systems risks diluting that combination; hiring with systems preserves it.

For clients, this means:

• More consistent delivery from stable senior teams.

• Faster project ramp and less onboarding friction.

• Clearer ownership across creative, engineering and commercial roles - which improves predictability and outcomes.

For the agency it means the difference between building a collection of talented hires and building a durable organization where expertise compounds into repeatable advantage.

A note from leadership

Darkroom’s CEO framed the hire around ownership: giving people work ownership and focusing on retention keeps the agency’s product - people + AI + systems - intact as it scales. That perspective is important: when an agency’s competitive asset is senior judgment and creative craft, leader-level investment in people systems is not HR window dressing - it’s product strategy.

Quick operational takeaways

• Expect a tightened recruiting playbook with role scorecards and outcome-based onboarding.

• Career ladders and development plans will be framed around commercial and creative metrics, not just tenure.

• Hiring priorities will map to product roadmaps: hires that unblock AI, commerce engineering, and performance creative will take precedence.

• Retention will be measured and improved through concrete programs - mentoring, promotion cadence, and early-impact projects.

  
  

Book a call with Darkroom

If you’re evaluating partners who combine senior creative talent with AI-native systems - and you want an agency that invests in keeping talent for the long run - Darkroom is building the people and product stack to deliver. Book a strategy call: https://darkroomagency.com/book-a-call