Creativity at scale: building a global brand consultancy
I spent the first 15 years of my career working in agencies with brands like Google, Nike and Channel 4. It was a brilliant education. I learnt the craft, learnt the commercial side and, just as importantly, saw how very different agencies approached the same problems.
The moment that changed everything came in 2012.
I was lucky to lead the team pitching to rebrand Airbnb. It was a very different company then. Smaller, but you could already tell it had something special. We won the work and I ended up spending around 18 months on and off in California helping shape the future of the brand.
It was one of those projects that changes how you think. It made me realise I’d reached the point where I wanted to build something myself.
So in 2014, alongside my co-founders Caroline Matthews and Jowey Roden, we started Koto.
Bridging strategy and execution
The idea behind Koto was pretty simple.
At the time there was a gap in the market. The big consultancies were brilliant at strategy. Boutique agencies were brilliant at making things. But there weren’t many businesses genuinely doing both.
Clients would leave with a great strategy deck, but no obvious path to turning it into something people actually experienced.
That was the opportunity we saw.
We wanted strategy and creativity to live together. Not because it sounded good in a pitch, but because that’s how businesses solve problems.
That idea is still at the centre of Koto today.
The final piece of the puzzle was a good name. I’d read an interview with the Japanese designer Kenya Hara who explained that mono is what something looks like, while Koto is what something makes you feel. That felt like everything we were trying to achieve, to make our clients and their customers feel more.
In the early years, we were lucky. Brands like Hilton and Coca-Cola backed a young agency that hadn’t earned the right on paper. They took a chance on us and that trust gave us the platform to grow.
Thinking globally from the start
One project we didn’t win probably shaped Koto more than many we did.
In 2017, we pitched globally for Uber.
We were told our creative work was the strongest, but they worried we were too small to handle the scale of the relationship.
At first that stung.
Then we realised they were probably right.
If we wanted to work with the biggest companies in the world, we had to become the kind of business they believed could support them.
So we started expanding. Berlin came first, then Los Angeles, then New York, before growing further into Asia.
Today we work with clients across the world. The ambition was never to build lots of offices for the sake of it. It was to be genuinely global because that’s what our clients needed.
Making space for creativity
Our mission has always been to make space for creativity.
People often talk about creativity like it’s some magical talent that appears out of nowhere. I don’t think that’s true.
Creativity needs the right environment, both physically and mentally. It needs debate. It needs people challenging each other. It needs enough trust that someone can say, “I think that’s wrong,” without worrying what happens next.
The pandemic tested that belief.
Like everyone else, we adapted. But it also reminded us why we built a studio based culture in the first place.
Technology is brilliant at helping people communicate. It isn’t brilliant at recreating the energy that comes from people solving problems together in the same room.
That’s why we’re still an in person company.
Helping brands navigate AI
Like everyone else, the biggest shift we’re seeing today is AI.
As with every major technology shift, it’s created two camps. One thinks it’ll solve everything. The other thinks nothing changes.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Our role is helping clients work out what it actually means for their business.
We’re fortunate to work with companies like Google on Gemini, helping explain incredibly complex technology in ways normal people can understand.
Internally we’ve been investing heavily in AI for years.
Not because we think it replaces creativity, but because we think it removes some of the work that gets in creativity’s way.
The conversation is often about automation.
The interesting bit is what happens with the time AI gives back. That’s where the value is. Better thinking. Better ideas. Better relationships with clients.
The technology is changing almost weekly, so the challenge isn’t simply adopting AI. It’s making sure people know when to use it, when not to use it and how to use it responsibly.
Building a business beyond its Founders
One thing I’ve thought about a lot over the last few years is making sure Koto isn’t overly reliant on its founders.
Founder energy is powerful.
It’s also a bottleneck if you’re not careful.
The real challenge is building a business that gets stronger because decisions are made by lots of people, not weaker because everything comes back to one person.
That’s been a big focus for us.
Today we have leaders across Koto making decisions, growing clients and running parts of the business independently.
That’s what allows a company to scale without losing its character.
Why we chose WestBridge
When we started thinking about investment, we weren’t simply looking for capital. We were looking for partnership, which is much harder to find in my experience.
We wanted people who understood that creative businesses are different and who could help us think beyond our own experience.
From the first conversations, WestBridge stood out.
They asked thoughtful questions. They listened more than they talked. And they spent time trying to understand how creative agencies work rather than assuming they already knew.
Speaking to other founders in their portfolio gave us even more confidence.
Now we’ve worked together for some time, what matters most is that the relationship feels exactly as we’d hoped. Collaborative, honest and based on trust.
Looking ahead
Koto continues to grow.
We’re working with more ambitious clients, expanding internationally and building a broader business than we imagined when we started over a decade ago.
Alongside that, we’re now beginning our M&A journey.
That’s particularly exciting because it isn’t about getting bigger for the sake of it. It’s about bringing new capabilities into the group, giving clients access to more expertise and creating something that’s stronger than the individual parts.
The world is changing quickly, particularly with AI reshaping almost every industry.
But one thing hasn’t changed.
Every single day, creativity still solves problems.
Whether that’s helping someone understand a new technology, launching a new business or changing how people see an existing one, that’s what we’ve always believed.
It’s why we started Koto and it’s still what gets me excited about where we’re going next.