As the saying goes, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Everyone can pinpoint moments in their working life that they wish they’d approached differently. But sometimes it’s only after you’ve had time to reflect on a situation that you can understand what worked, what went wrong and what learnings you can take forward for next time.

In this new series, we’re going to ask some of the experienced leaders across MSQ to pick a lesson they’ve learnt during their career. Something they wish they knew when starting out, but had to experience in order to truly understand.

They may want to warn their younger self of a pitfall to avoid, or encourage them to embrace an opportunity or develop a skill that would have been beneficial to learn earlier.

We’ll add more videos from more leaders over the coming weeks, but we start off with our Chairman, Charles Courtier. Charles started his career in the media department of a small London agency called Connell May & Steavenson. He moved to Y&R in 1989 and by the time WPP acquired the agency in 2000, he was their Media Director. He then moved to MEC, where he stayed for 15 years, eventually becoming Global CEO.

Charles joined MSQ as Chairman in May last year. He’s also a Co-Dean of the Cannes Young Lions Media Academy and an advisor to a number of entrepreneurial businesses. So he’s learnt a lot over the years. But what did he wish he knew earlier?