The Brand Agency founder and national chairman Ken James calls time on his long career

June 15 2015, 1:56 pm | BY Kim Shaw | 7 Comments

KenJames_BLOG.jpgThe Brand Agency’s national chairman Ken James will officially retire from the agency he founded from July 1.

James famously started the agency along with 6 partners with an MBO of McCann Erickson’s Perth office in 1991.

Over the 24 years since then, it has become Western Australia’s most successful agency, establishing offices in Melbourne and Auckland as its biggest client, Bunnings, became a national hardware behemoth.

While admitting he would miss the excitement of the agency and the industry, James told Campaign Brief that at 64 years of age it was time to hand the business over to the next generation.

“At the end of the day you’ve got to move on. I restructured the company and made Steve (Harris) CEO in January last year. I knew the next step was making myself redundant and I was happy to do that.”

A two-time winner of Campaign Brief Western Australia’s Ad Person of the Year (1993, 2001), James is also Perth’s most successful ad man, building The Brand Agency to a national presence then steering it through a lucrative acquisition by STW Group, which now owns 84% of the agency. The Brand is perennially one of STW’s top performing businesses.

He said he was proud of the agency’s success and to be leaving it on top.

“We built something out of nothing into what it is today. I leave it in incredibly good shape… I have no regrets – it’s been a blast.”

James has some travel planned in the near future and beyond that will be kept busy with business interests he has outside of the advertising industry.