Weblog

News

Employee owned agencies?

by Mark Roberts
Friday, July 8, 2005. 06:37AM
Technorati Tags:
715 Views 10 Comments

I was wondering if there were any employee owned shops. There must be but I have never heard of any. I am not talking about tiny shops, but maybe 30 or 40 people. If anyone has heard of any, I would be interested in know who they are. Thanks.

(login to vote or comment.)

Comments

 10 shown
Tuesday, July 12, 2005. 07:38AM by Capers Hammond
Just talked to a friend of mine from London, St Lukes is still up and operational, Andy Law did leave and start Boy meets girl, which is now defunct, Law is on to another venture, something about expanding advertising into emerging markets. Apparently St Lukes has recently lost some business but is still plugging along.
Monday, July 11, 2005. 10:59PM by Mark Roberts
Go to www.stlukes.co.uk Their news section was updated in April of this year. Dunno.
Monday, July 11, 2005. 08:15PM by shaun arora
st lukes collapsed a few years ago. andy had started another shop 2 years ago, something like boymeetsgirlsj or something. there have been profit sharing to a small extent, and i can now buy shares of omnicom. but owning is not so much in style.
Monday, July 11, 2005. 06:31PM by Mark Roberts
Some aspects of the St. Lukes thing intrigue me very much. My little shop is (cross-fingers) gaining a little bit of steam and I want to try something a bit different than the typical paradigm. And I want to make a deliberate decision as to how to proceed as opposed to passively ending up someplace.

The reservations I have regarding the St. Lukes scenario stems from seeing partners who founded other agencies in Dallas ousted. Good people who went through blood sweat and tears to build a solid shop, only to end up out on their asses. My business partner and I will always retain 51% for that one reason. But I would like to breed an atmosphere where business as well as creative innovation is rewarded and everyone makes a living commensurate to their abilities in a more direct fashion. I have worked at too many places which have boat anchors making obscene amounts of money. And that is just sucks the life out of a working situation.

Monday, July 11, 2005. 06:23PM by Kylin Johnson
Creative Company (about St Lukes) is one the best advertising books ever! Of course I read it while at one of the worst places I've ever even visited perhaps and felt like I'd started the joke that started the whole world crying! Shawn what business type is your company? I didn't know the US had an equivalent to the business type that St. Luke's registered. I even recall it was considered archaic in the UK at the time that Andy Law and company implemented it.
Monday, July 11, 2005. 04:27AM by Jeffrey Riman
Capers, that’s an inspiring article that reinforces the idea of how collective responsibility, accountability and risk-taking can lead to success or at least a spirited effort. Large publicly owned companies spend so much time on consolidation and organization that finding time to focus on creativity is difficult. Share the pain share the gain!
Friday, July 8, 2005. 11:48AM by Mark Roberts
That was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
Friday, July 8, 2005. 08:43AM by Capers Hammond
Mark, check out this link, I came across this a couple of months ago and thought it was interesting. The article is a little old but the agency is still up and running and seemingly with the same philosophy, seems like a pretty cool agency; St Lukes in the U.K www.fastcompany.com/online/06/stluke...
Friday, July 8, 2005. 07:06AM by shawn utterback
My agency is employee owned. 70+ employees. People work a heluva lot harder when they are effected by the bottom line...
Friday, July 8, 2005. 06:49AM by Darren Herman
If you work at a public agency (publicly traded), and own shares of the company, you are technically employee owned. However, you may have less than 51% share.

Topics

Archives

Subscribe