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.
The Counsel
- Founder: Nigel Douglas
- Year founded: 2025
Tell us the story behind founding your agency.
After 10 years publisher side I left TVNZ to found media agency Alcheme. It was a quintessential startup story: a man, a computer, a phone, a client, working from home. Five years in, I merged with creative agency Sugar and we won Independent Agency of the Year three times.
With the business partners wanting different things, I left and started Chemistry (the media arm of BCG). We made some big moves like obtaining the licence for the MediaCom brand in New Zealand, picking up several clients from The Media Counsel (which went into liquidation) and acquiring Media360 in 2011.
We built the agency up to 50 people, $100 million billings and number four on the ladder, then sold it back to WPP in 2015. I then spent eight years as CEO of OMD, before leaving last year to start New Zealand’s first pitch consultancy, The Counsel.
What’s your favourite thing about running your own agency?
You’re the master of your own destiny, for good and bad. You get to make all your own decisions. The negative side is that if you don’t sell anything, nothing happens. You’re also the chief cook and the bottle washer, the architect, the salesperson, the lawyer, the accountant, the marketer, all of those things.
You’ve also got to be incredibly resilient. Everyone thinks, “Oh, that sounds great. I’m going to start my own business.” Do you know what you’re up for? It’s not for the faint-hearted.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned?
The biggest learning for me is how to leverage M&A strategically and the benefit of that. Everybody wants to do it themselves and grind away, but there are other ways to help grow your business.
If you build it, it’ll take you ages. If you buy it, it’s like pouring gasoline on a fire. You also strip out all the admin, and there’s a whole bunch of efficiencies that immediately create cost savings.
It took me at least five years to figure that out, and I used to think of it as a regret, but it’s really a great learning. I just wish that I’d figured it out faster, because once I realised the power of M&A, that was a real catalyst.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received or given out?
My go-to piece of advice is that you don’t have a business until you sell something. You can be incredible at your craft, but if you haven’t got a client and you haven’t sold a thing, then there is nothing.
I also advise those starting a business to ‘beg, steal or borrow’, and to be mindful that you’re probably going to need some support and you might need to trade – especially at the beginning – some equity for some services or skillsets that you don’t have.
I work with a lot of people starting up new businesses and they’re all desperate to hang onto their equity (which I get), but you just need to be able to trade off what’s going to get you further faster in your particular scenario.
Anything else we should know?
Multinational pitches are just about always handled by pitch consultants, because they’re complicated and it’s hard for clients to navigate to get to an effective outcome. More local businesses are using consultants for the same reasons. In Australia about half a dozen consultancies have popped up over the past couple of years that are doing exactly that, but there were none in New Zealand until now.
They’re all run by people like me, ex-CEOs in their 50s wanting to do the same sort of thing for the same sort of reason. I’d been eyeing that up for quite some time, and last year I started that up. We’re six months into it and I’m really starting to get quite a bit of traction with quite a few projects getting signed off right now. I’m thrilled with the impact we’re having and really enjoying getting back into the hot seat.
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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