JKR is having a pretty good time of things. The 35-year-old branding agency, based in London and New York, saw a 16% rise in new business last year, rising to 25% in new sectors like tech and finance.
So far in 2025, its win-ratio is 90%, with new clients including Ford and Intuit, and it was named design agency of the year by both Fast Company and Creative Review.
To build on its recent success, the company has restructured its leadership team, bringing 15 senior executives together to drive innovation and ensure the business is focused on the right things.
The group includes Melanie McShane, JKR’s first-ever executive strategy director, and Jonny Spindler, who becomes the UK CEO.
We sat down with global CEO James Nixon, chief growth officer Sara Hyman, and chief creative officer Tosh Hall, who together have nearly 50 years’ combined experience in the company, to discuss change, AI, and their plans to build a legacy.
Why did you decide to restructure the leadership team?
James Nixon: We’ve been operating with the same model for many years, with individual P&Ls across different markets.
We took a view that the most success we’ve had in our history has been about real focus on creativity, clients and strategy. That’s the fundamental thing.
And we found the old model was having a huge weight on brilliant talent, who ended up being far too focused on the day-to-day running of the business.
The restructure means we have the best talent in the world focusing on business problems for our clients. It’s about a one JKR approach, removing barriers so we can operate more seamlessly, and put more focus on the things that really matter.
And why make these changes now?
Tosh Hall: We’re at an inflection point in our industry. Depending on who you ask, it’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. We’re in a Dickensian moment.
This agency has been through seismic shifts in technology and media. From doing the chalice for Stella Artois – with some packaging, maybe some TV – through the dotcom boom, the failure of that, the dotcom boom again, the smartphone, everyone freaking out about the internet. And now everyone losing their minds about AI.
The moment for us is right now, because we believe that what matters most is what has always mattered to this agency, which is to be distinctive. And now the difference is to be distinctive everywhere.
JKR’s work for the RSPCA
AI is going to radically revolutionise creativity and the marketing industry.
What will matter is quality and creativity. And so we’re setting ourselves up for that future – organising ourselves to have creativity win the day in today’s market.
I think the marketing services business will come around to brand being the tip of the spear, and creativity being the tool. So we’re going to reshape marketing services like we haven’t done in 100 years.
Sara Hyman: A big part of the thesis that we take to brands is to defy the conventions of your category.
But when we look at our category, there are these lazy preconceptions that have crept in about who branding agencies are.
You see this bifurcation, with certain shops perceived to be the strategy powerhouses, and then these boutiques that are known for creative excellence and bravery.
We’ve looked at those silos and thought, fuck that. Why do clients have to choose between one or the other? Why do they either get strategic rigour and expertise or creative brilliance?
So this restructure is about putting the big strategy brains and the big creative brains together in one leadership team, to help clients with the big questions they’re facing, which are quite intense. But also blow their minds of what’s possible creatively.
You mentioned your mission, to make brands distinctive everywhere. It feels like right now, both of those words are in flux…
James Nixon: That’s why it’s such a unique moment. The need for distinctiveness has only ramped up, and our relationships with clients have gone up the food chain.
The C-suite taking more and more interest in the importance of distinctiveness has been a big part of our growth.
We’re really proud that the philosophy and positioning of distinctiveness has been with us for 35 years. It’s never changed.
I think it’s at the heart of everything – the infrastructure, the way we think, what we do, the processes we have, the talent orientation.
And now we have all these mediums, all these technologies, all these algorithms, hitting us with more and more choice. So standing out as a business is critical.
Branding is quite a mid- to long-term play, but many senior leaders are under pressure to deliver – and demonstrate – immediate impact. How do you navigate building long-term brands in what feels like a short-term business culture?
Tosh Hall: You just have to open your news app to see the medium- and short-term mistakes that destroy value in companies. It has never been more critical than now to get it right. The stakes are enormous.
Sara Hyman: There can be a tension between being timeless and timely.
How can we build these brands so we’re giving them the tools to endure and set up their strategic foundations? But then also building things so they can act, and move, and get on culture in more dynamic ways.
Because it’s important to understand the reality of running a business right now…
Sara Hyman: Exactly. Clients don’t want us to disappear into a black box for four weeks, and then come back to surprise them with the answer.
A lot of the preciousness of our business has been eroded in the last five years. You’ve got to be a lot more experimental, open, and share the wrong stuff as much as the right stuff, because clients want that level of interaction.
James Nixon: One of our founders coined the phrase, “The problem with the design industry is designers.”
Tosh Hall: And it was the creative side that said that. It wasn’t a bunch of account people beating up on us design folks.
But in some ways the design industry is microscopic. The brand industry is bigger. Communication and marketing services are even larger.
Why are we so focused on the minutiae, when design, at its best, is a strategic problem solving tool? Brand, at its best, is a valuable asset on a company’s P&L.
It’s striking that you all reference the founders quite regularly. How do you balance maintaining a JKR DNA that goes back to its roots, while also evolving to meet new challenges?
James Nixon: We believe in building a legacy. And we agree that one of the things that makes our business unique is that there are components that have always been part of JKR.
The founders believed they could do it better than anybody else – there was a fundamental belief around quality. That’s what brings the soul, even if the backdrop, or the context changes.
Tosh Hall: We’ve been around for 35 years, and we intend to be around for the next 35.
With lots of companies, when the original founders transition, they cease to exist, or they get gobbled up by someone else, and no longer have the prominence or relevance that we do. And so that transition has been very deliberate.
One of our principles is look back, and look forward.
You can’t know where you’re going until you’ve known where you’ve come from. But you have to make it relevant today, and figure out how to take the next leap.
Sara Hyman: I think a lot of the soul comes down to the values we created a few years ago. We interviewed all these people across the company, and asked them what’s your best memory of JKR? Tell us about the toughest time you ever had.
We listened back to all those interviews to work out the signature features of the business – individuality, bravery, and tenacity.
I don’t think any of us are sitting here thinking we’ve cracked it. But we got to those values through other people telling stories. It’s our job now to give the next generation their versions of those stories.
Tosh Hall: It’s pretty simple. We do to ourselves what we do to our clients – we’re going to make you, you. Only more so. That sounds like voodoo, but it’s what we do.
For new business, what specific verticals are you focused on?
Sara Hyman: We obviously looked at what categories and verticals are growing – where are the tailwinds?
We also looked at B2B – we have an amazing pedigree in consumer branding, and so we asked where that spirit could translate into new sectors? Where was there a bit of inertia, and blanding in play that we could grab and disrupt?
And we looked at where we think the top marketeers are going, the people who are actually going to commission bold work for brands.
That took us to four categories – finance, healthcare and wellness, media and entertainment, and technology.
I’ll never forget pitching a very elite financial institution in 2021. Tosh and I were like – how on earth are we going to convince them they should go with us?
We just confidently owned the work that we had. We talked to them about Burger King and we talked to them about Dunkin’. We didn’t talk about the superficial category they were in – we connected the dots between the challenges those brands were facing.
It’s not about having relevant category expertise, it’s do you have the skills to take a brand from X to Y? Or to take an audience from A to B?
And it’s working, that push to being a category agnostic branding business. This year our win rate is 90%. It’s bananas.
Tosh Hall: And it’s not like that’s nine out of ten. We did 22 out of 24.
Sara Hyman: We also call BS on the premise that you specialise in B2B or B2C. It doesn’t matter whether they sell boardroom to boardroom SaaS products, or it’s burgers and beers. It’s still comes down to telling a distinctive story about a brand that makes it salient and different.
Why was it important to hire JKR’s first executive strategy director?
James Nixon: As I said, we’re working more in that C-suite environment. We’re seeing more and more exposure to the fundamental strategy around the business, and we’re providing the bridge into the brand.
We needed to make sure that we had the right capabilities and talent to be that bridge. And Mel McShane, who has lots of experience at places like Wolff Olins and Siegel+Gale, is that bridge.
You also announced a new UK CEO. How do you see the relationship between the UK and the US studios?
Tosh Hall: We used to be a two-studio company, that we described like a tennis match. London would fire the ball across the ocean, and you’re like, “Oh my god what have these fuckers done? It’s incredible.”
And then New York would fire it back, and London would think, “Oh my god, did you see what they just did? We need to get our shit together and go faster.”
That competition fuelled creative quality.
But now there’s no distinction really – it’s just one creative team. We put the best talent on the best opportunities. We have Brits working on New York things, and New Yorkers working on British things.
James Nixon: Having moved to the US about four years ago, I think the difference in commercial mindset here – in terms of trying something, and if it doesn’t work, trying something else – is quite profound. But that can also create challenges.
So our new model creates an intertwined balance between driving ambition and desire and hustle and tenacity, versus some stability and common sense.
Tosh Hall: You can decide which one is which…
James Nixon: The UK economy is clearly a challenging environment. But in 2016 or 2017, we made a pretty brave decision that we would come away from a lot of domestic UK brands, and go after big international companies.
And the ecosystem of clients in the UK is very international – we’re not very exposed to UK business. So I’m really pleased we did that on reflection, when you look at where we are today.