Leading a startup is no small feat, but President and Partner Kerry McKibbin led Mischief @ No Fixed Address all the way to Ad Age’s A-List Agency of the Year. 

McKibbin cleared the path for the agency’s rapid success over the past two years, growing its headcount from 20 to 65, launching 30 campaigns in one year alone—including for Kraft Mac and Cheese and Eos—and new business growth. Since the shop's launch, she has made it clear that making the best creative and growing revenue are not mutually exclusive. 

“I think from the first moments of working with this group, I had a lot of faith in everybody’s ability, in their appetite and their aptitude for doing great work,” McKibbin said. “I had a lot of faith in our ability to reach great heights quickly and I’m both surprised and not surprised, because this team is so great and so good at what they do. The combination of those two things has led to our success.” McKibbin has always had a great hunger for “different, new, better and further,” she said, adding that her ambitious personality helped lead her to the successful role of running an agency.

What advice would you give your younger self? 

Don't worry too much—you'll make yourself (and your parents) proud. Also, don't pluck your eyebrows.

What's the biggest risk you've ever taken?

Leaving Canada to move to the U.S.—with a non-working visa and unknown employment prospects—and then getting pregnant two months later. But now I have a green card and am president of the A-List No. 1 Agency. So, per TikTok: American Dream! Best country in the world!

If you weren’t doing your current job, what would you be doing and why? 

I’d probably be a personal chef. I love cooking and cooking uses a lot of the same skills— planning, creativity within that planning, knowing your audience, time management.

What should the industry do to encourage more women and people of color into its ranks?

We need to build workplaces where every team member is given the individual tools and support to realize their fullest potential. Also transparent recruitment, onboarding, retention and promotion policies that are built to be inclusive. Finally, by ensuring quantitative accountability around representation (women, BIPOC, LGBTQA+ and ability status) at all levels, but especially in leadership.

What is the biggest lesson you have taken away from the pandemic?

When you strip everything else away— the expensive offices, the schmoozing, the theater of big pitches— what matters at the end of the day is the talent and the work. An agency is really just the sum of its talent and its work.