In the June-August 2026 issue of NZ Marketing magazine, we asked agency founders to tell us the story behind why they started their agency, their favourite thing, what they’ve learned and their best advice.
Federation
- Founder: Sharon Henderson
- Year founded: 2008
Tell us the story behind founding your agency.
After a sliding doors ‘what if’ moment 15-plus years ago, and having led some of the biggest multi-national agencies in New Zealand and Australia, I’d developed a passion for ‘return on ideas’. ROI². Ideas that deliver compounding returns for clients – growing customers, brands and the bottom line, year after year. Not just awards for the agency.
What if we built an agency where ‘return on ideas’ was the standard everything was measured against? Where strategy, creative, broadcast, social, digital, CX, PR and activation worked as a federation, not in silos – but together to compound the power of ideas?
Federation was born. Fifteen-plus years on, Federation is a top-three independent agency, 100% New Zealand-owned, with offices in Auckland, Wellington and Melbourne. Every dollar our clients invest stays here – growing our clients and the New Zealand economy, with ideas that keep paying back long after the campaign ends.
What’s your favourite thing about running your own agency?
The freedom to build.
The freedom to build an agency on our own terms. To commit to our own mission of delivering ‘return on ideas’ for our clients. The freedom to build big ideas and something that builds New Zealand too. To invest in the best people, our craft and our clients, and not have to right-shape our agency for the next quarter’s NYSE share price.
Best of all, I get to spend my days with the best minds in New Zealand marketing, answering to the work and to each other. That’s it. Most mornings I still can’t believe I get to call that a job.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned?
To be obsessive about understanding what makes a client’s business tick, at a macro level, not just a marketing one.
I believe the best marketing in the world starts with being genuinely interested in who the customer is and how they think, but also how the business grows and where the value sits.
That curiosity has even led me into governance and the boardroom – it’s why I am a director now. Marketing is the powerhouse of business. And the marketers who shine brightest are obsessed with their customers and clear-eyed about the levers of growth. The best decisions start with the customer and work backwards from there.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received or given out?
The best advice I ever received was three words long: success is freedom.
It came from the founders at BBDO Australasia when I was starting out in my first MD gig. They ran the business as founders because they’d started out as founders, and taught us to do the same.
The lesson I’ve added to it over the years is the other half of the same idea. Success only stays yours if you keep questioning how you’re earning it. The best people I’ve worked with build a feedback loop into the way they work. They’re never satisfied.
They take nothing for granted. They’re always hungry for more insight and keep asking the harder questions. Success doesn’t arrive – you earn it, every day. And the freedom it buys only stays yours if you keep questioning how to use it well.
That’s the advice I pass on. Earn the freedom. Question the work. Keep doing both.
Anything else we should know?
Few know I started in this industry on the creative side, and my greatest inspiration was John Hegarty. He and his BBH partners had a line they used to say to each other in the early days, and I’ve carried it ever since: “We haven’t come this far to be ordinary.”
That’s the standard.
This story comes from NZ Marketing magazine issue 87, June-August 2026. Why not subscribe? Get four issues a year for just $50 (including delivery) if you autorenew.
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