Reputation, Talent, Trust: John Dunleavy on Why Small Agencies Are Winning Now
ABOUT EPISODE
John Dunleavy spent nearly four decades at the top of the agency world. Ogilvy. McCann. WPP. In this conversation, John, now Global Managing Director at the Charles Group, sits down with Adam to talk about what actually transfers when you go from running a holding company network to building an independent agency. His answer might surprise you. The processes don't. The org charts don't. What does? Relationships. Talent. Trust. Creativity. The four things that have always mattered and still do.
But here's what's changed: the playing field. Technology has compressed what once required 100 people and $10 million into something a sharp team of 10 can pull off. That gap is now a structural advantage for independents who know how to use it. They also get into the tension between full-service and niche, and why John thinks it's actually a false choice. The agencies that earn the deepest client trust aren't the ones who execute everything. They're the ones a CMO calls when something is genuinely broken. Being that call is a positioning decision, not a capabilities decision. And making it requires the thing John kept coming back to: transparency. Be honest about what you can do. Orchestrate the rest. This is what separates a strategic partner from a vendor.
They close on the founder question. The one every agency leader eventually faces. When your name is above the door, clients feel it. But you can't be everywhere. So how do you make that founder magic live in every corner of the agency, even the rooms you're not in? John's take is direct: it's talent, then systems, and then delegation before you think you're ready.
GUEST BIO
John Dunleavy is a global advertising, media, and communications executive known for leading award-winning agencies and advising some of the world’s most iconic brands. Over the course of his career, he has held senior regional and global leadership roles at WPP (Ogilvy, Grey), Interpublic Group (McCann Worldgroup), and Publicis Groupe (Publicis, Saatchi & Saatchi), partnering with marketers including Coca-Cola, Diageo, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Unilever, Verizon, Sony, and Pernod Ricard. His work has earned hundreds of creative and effectiveness awards, including Cannes Lions Network of the Year honors, multiple Grand Prix, and the Clio for Advertiser of the Year.
Today, John serves as Global Managing Director and Board Advisor at the Charles Group, a family-run independent agency whose client roster spans Cartier, HP, Birkenstock, and Cochrane. He works with founders and leadership teams to sharpen positioning, strengthen go-to-market strategy, and build the operational discipline required to scale with purpose, while helping investors maximize portfolio value and brands modernize their agency ecosystems for more integrated and accountable marketing. When he’s not advising or leading, you’ll find him cycling, at live music events, exploring the arts, or traveling with his wife and two sons.