Today, Wieden+Kennedy’s Global Chief Creative Officer and President Colleen DeCourcy announced her retirement from advertising and the end of her run at arguably the ad world's most celebrated independent agency.

In 2013 after leading the charge at agencies including TBWA and Organic, DeCourcy stepped up to a challenge from co-founder Dan Wieden to ensure that the agency he co-founded with David Kennedy in 1982 would live up to its storied creative legacy going forward. Under DeCourcy's watch, Wieden+Kennedy continued to ignite the industry with consistently groundbreaking and inspiring ideas in the face of a changing consumer and marketing landscape. 

With the news, advertising also says farewell to one of its most prominent and influential creative leaders.

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Now, DeCourcy herself passes the torch to Wieden's next generation of leaders, including Global Chief Creative Officer Karl Lieberman and Global Chief Operating Officer Neal Arthur, as well as a new guard in Portland, Executive Creative Directors John “JP” Petty, former head of the New York’s social team; and Hermeti and Ana Balarin, the celebrated Mother London creative leaders who joined the agency earlier this year.

DeCourcy sat down with Ad Age to share her thoughts on the importance of change, where she believes the new guard will take Wieden+Kennedy going forward and the fate of the advertising industry. 

So this is a big moment, for you and for the agency. Why retire now?

This plan has been in my head for so long. I never believed this would be a tear-this-job-from-my-cold-dead-hands kind of situation, and so I think I always knew that when I felt that the job had been done, that it would be my time to go. This is an organization that has always believed that change is good. I love this place so fucking much, and I gave it everything I’ve got. But it doesn’t define me any more than I define it. I’m excited, Neal and Karl are excited, and I think everything is playing out as it should.

So what are you going to do?

Oh, God, whatever the fuck I want? I wouldn't work in advertising, that I know for sure. It was hard work, I’m getting close to retirement age, so I’m gonna take it slow, take it easy. My family is on the East Coast. It was definitely worth going west for this, but it's not where I would end up for the rest of my life.

Advertising doesn’t seem to be in the greatest place right now. There are talent issues, for example, and it’s not drawing creatives as it used to. Did that play a part in your leaving? What are your thoughts on where it is, at this point? 

The thing that unites us at Wieden+Kennedy is that none of us love advertising. What we love is creativity and ideas and brands. Do I still love that? Yeah, as much as I ever did. Do I think the industry is changing dramatically? I really do. Advertising’s favorite thing is to hate itself. Before COVID, my stump speech was, “Welcome to 21st century optimism.” It's not the end of advertising. It's the beginning of everything else. And everything else is really exciting. When I look at everything from, you know, Travis Scott [and McDonald’s] that’s like everything else to me. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for creative people. I think what's shaking out is the structures within which we deploy ourselves at problems. So, if you love the old way, yeah, you're probably not going to love what's coming. But if you love creativity and brands, I think it's gonna be just fine. 

You spent almost a decade at the agency. I know this is a hard question to answer—like asking someone to choose their favorite babies—but what was your favorite work, your favorite moments at Wieden+Kennedy?

There's a lot of work that I'm proud of that came out of the agency. I've been so proud for the Nike team. I loved waking up the morning of Kaepernick seeing culture explode. I'm so proud for New York, and the way they finally turned that into a real growing concern of its own, not an adjunct office. I was super proud of the McDonald’s and Ford wins back-to-back that said we weren't just a boutique agency. I was pretty proud about the back-to-back[-to-back] Agency of the Year awards because I felt like we were just killing ourselves. It was a big grand experiment, all the things I was trying to put in place. Not that it's the end-all-be-all but when you see that hit, you go, “Okay, something's working, man, and it's not breaking. It's becoming tighter. That was an incredibly proud moment.

Read: When Wieden+Kennedy moved from a partner to stakeholder model.  

I was incredibly proud when the partners had the beneficence and the forethought to all agree to step aside and let 24 more people come in and dilute that pool, so that there was more democracy and more access and more thinking. It was something that was so revered, like next to godliness if you could get in that little group, and we just cracked it open and invited everybody in. I felt really proud of the organization for that. I felt proud of us when COVID hit, and in really trying times, this place has maintained its culture. My favorite moments really spanned far and wide. Some of the things have been about our resilience, our humility, our creativity. I took very seriously the charge of “Shake this place up” and I was assured by Dan, “You can’t break it,” and it didn’t break. 

Were you scared? 

For sure. I think in some ways my naivete helped me walk into that fire. But that's what this place is about: Are you scared yet? Is it hard? Could it really fail? That’s what “fail harder” means. Could it blow up? Is it really gonna make a tangible difference at the end? Because if it is, then you're probably risking something to get there. I started in January 2013 and I think I didn't get unscared until near the end of 2017. It takes a while.

You’ve been a leader at various agencies, not just Wieden. There was Organic, TBWA. What did you learn from each of those? 

Organic taught me about change. I joined just after the dotcom bust and every single day, who was in my department, who was not, what they did, what we made, it just changed. You had to keep your wits about you and think on your feet. And it taught me that a great creative knows how to braid enough of the business sense into it, to get really, really difficult work souls, right, because you had to know there was no separating clients, business, Premier creative in the digital space. TBWA taught me about scale, and what it meant to be legendary. And it was such a different thing, because the digital space in the time I was working in, it was very much a hive mind. And I got to TBWA and there's Lee Clow, Jean-Marie Dru, Tom Carroll, this cast of incredible characters. And it was so international, I had to work out of every office they had in every language you could think of at one point or another. And I loved that. I think this spirit of Jay Chiat was very much in that legendary air at that point in time at TBWA. 

And Wieden+Kennedy?

Wieden taught me about the importance of authenticity—that the only thing you can do as a leader to be consistent and effective over time is to be yourself. And you're either up for it or you're not. There's no role that you play; there's no acting like a leader. And “find your voice” applies to everyone from the most junior copywriter to the person who runs the company. I'm really grateful because when you look at that trajectory, I think each [company] played a part in where I ended up. Think on your feet, wrap your business in the creative, learn how to scale, be legendary, and then be authentic and find your voice, do something with the work, do something that matters.

You say "be yourself" is the lesson you learned while at Wieden+Kennedy. Who are you today?

I think I'm different than when I came in. I think today I am someone who is comfortable listening more than I talk. I think today I feel less compelled to have the answer to everything. There are things you can do to shift the trigger, but if you set a plan and you stick to it, just kind of relax and be present. I think I was a much more hyperkinetic person and leader than I am now. 

So now Karl and Neal have the reins. Can you talk about what you think they’ll bring to the agency going forward? 

Those two surprise me every day. You have an almost a buried treasure in Neal. He’d been running [New York] for such a long time and he just turned out to be such a freakin’ rock star. He’s someone who shows up as himself every day, who really understands how people feel about things, and tracks that. And his moral compass is important to him.  And then you take Karl, who's this kind of sleeper who seemed to come from out of nowhere. When he walked into that job, a lot of people didn't think he was ready and I really did. And when he wasn’t ready for something he was the fastest study I've ever met. He's just really centered. He's got a real vision for the work. He really believes that clarity, and [being] no-nonsense is the best way to lead people into hard things. I don't think there's much that those two won't be able to do. I see nothing but opportunity with those two at the top. That's what's coming.

Also, Portland has new leadership now with Hermeti and Ana Balarin and JP Petty moving there. There's been a lot of action out of New York, and now, there's a reason to watch Portland extra closely, because there's new blood there. 

I think that leadership team is going to be extraordinary. You've got two people who are proven creative thinkers. If I had to look across the horizon and go, who does work that seems most “Wieden,” it would have been Ana and Hermeti. Then you combine that with the future, which is JP, if you look at the kinds of work that he's been pulling New York into with Bodega. JP’s the spot to watch, and you've got these two incredible professionals beside him, who have a very storied history, a great book, great background as leaders, everyone loves them. I think this will be the first kind of real post-Wieden leadership team. Those three have the pressure of “Holy shit, it's Wieden+Kennedy Portland,” but they don't have any of the pressure of, “Here's how Dan did it.” I think it’s extraordinary, three proven talents, walking into a proven place with a clean slate. I just think it's going to be really good. I am very excited to watch what they do. It was Karl’s masterstroke.

So Karl made the call on that leadership team?

Karl was my succession plan, and that choice [of leadership] was core to his setting up the future of the business he’s going to run. That choice had to be his. When he came back with that hand of cards, I was like, “Shit, Karl. That’s great.” I think it's gonna be awesome. Overarchingly, what I know is Wieden is just a keg of energy, and by peeling myself up the top off the top, all these other pieces move up a little bit, and it will change so many things, And I'm excited. So watch close. 

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