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.
Pitchblack Partners
- Founders: Jono Key, Tom Paine, Katie Loverich, Campbell McLean, Kate Lill, James Wendelborn, Liz Richards and Nick Dellabarca
- Year founded: 2018
Tell us the story behind founding your agency.
When we founded Pitchblack in 2018 we were determined to shake up the model and build an agency we would genuinely choose if we were clients.
The traditional agency ownership model was broken. We’d spent collective decades inside global network agencies. We knew what clients were paying for, and we knew what they were actually getting.
Last year we spoke to our own clients and senior CMOs across the industry and asked them what they actually wanted from an agency partnership. The answers were consistent. Real collaboration with senior talent, ideas that genuinely move the business, and a relationship where the agency’s success is tied to theirs, not just the fee.
Pitchblack is built differently. Every single member of our team holds equity in the agency. Senior people on the tools. No passengers. Everyone has skin in the game.
“We win when you win”
What’s your favourite thing about running your own agency?
Nobody makes great work alone and nobody has fun alone either. The job is finding people who care as much as you do and whom you can collaborate with.
That’s why we chose the old Drake St pub. Once home to drunk sailors, ghosts, the Exponents and bad comedians, it’s now home to Pitchblack Partners. People have been having great ideas here since 1886.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned?
Nobody knows more about winning culture than rugby league coach Ivan Cleary, and he was right when he said ‘Not everything matters, but everything counts.’ It’s one of the truest things I’ve learnt about running an agency.
It’s how people show up on a Monday. Whether someone replies to an email the same day. The energy someone brings to a small job. Whether a task brief gets written with care.
None of it feels important. All of it is.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received or given out?
Building something from nothing means living with uncertainty for longer than is comfortable. The people beside you matter. So do the clients who treat it like a genuine partnership, the ones who want to build something, not just buy something.
Oh, and look after your cashflow.
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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