By: Judith Middleton, Founder and CEO of DUO Marketing + Communications
A small agency team restructure built around four functional roles, rather than traditional job titles, delivered greater value to clients and a more fulfilling work experience for the team.
The breakthrough
The shift came from recognising that some responsibilities in a service business are naturally contradictory: commercial relationship management on one hand, and detailed metrics and accuracy on the other. Conventional job titles were confusing the jobs that need to be done with the specific people best suited to do them.
Four roles, matched to genuine strengths
The connector
Responsible for tending relationships with clients and external stakeholders, including the difficult conversations that come with that. This role needs commercial acumen, emotional intelligence and maturity, and can sit at a senior or even leadership level depending on what a specific client needs.
The holder of accountability
Acts as the client’s internal champion, asking whether the business is actually delivering what it promised and whether the team and suppliers are performing. This is a strategic role suited to someone with the experience and foresight to step back from daily execution and see the bigger picture.
The implementer
Delivers the actual work: producing content, managing campaigns, arranging the details that make a strategy real. This role needs high energy and tight focus, and is the cornerstone that the other roles support rather than replace.
The administrator
Holds reporting, scheduling and project management tightly together, checking deadlines and accuracy. This role rewards patience and attention to detail that connectors and implementers often lack.
Matching people to roles, not roles to hierarchy
The challenge is confusing seniority with personal strengths. Someone excellent at administration is often genuinely less suited to relationship-building, and that should never be treated as a reason to withhold recognition or advancement from either type of person.
The result
Restructuring around genuine strengths, rather than traditional titles, means each team member works with more clients while handling a narrower, better-matched range of tasks, spending more time on what they are actually good at.
Frequently asked questions
Does this role-based structure only work for marketing or PR agencies?
The underlying principle, matching people to the specific functions they are genuinely strongest at rather than a fixed job title, applies to most small service businesses, not only agencies.
How do you decide who takes on the connector role versus the administrator role?
Base it on genuine individual strengths and preferences observed over time, not seniority or job title, since the two skill sets rarely overlap in the same person.
Does restructuring this way reduce the need for traditional management levels?
Not entirely, but it does redistribute specific responsibilities across a smaller number of clearly defined functional roles rather than a rigid hierarchy.
Structure around strengths, not titles
A small team reorganised around genuine functional strengths, rather than conventional job titles, tends to deliver more value with less friction.
Further reading: How to Build a High-Performing Team | Department of Trade, Industry and Competition for official small business support information
Originally published in May 2019. Updated September 2026 to tighten this team-structure guidance from DUO Marketing + Communications’ Judith Middleton. The four-role framework remains sound.
