Havas

It takes a village to create a contender, and Colin Kinsella and team ripped off a string of wins to prove it.

- Patrick Coffeehavas

The first “get to know you” meeting between Havas Media North America’s incoming CEO Colin Kinsella and his new employees last May did not occur in the most glamorous of settings.

“I met the team, essentially, in a hotel room in Miami working on the TracFone pitch,” recalls Kinsella, the former Mind share North America chief who Havas brought on to run its media division last March. “Obviously they were very nervous, [but] I got everybody to really loosen up and not feel the pressure of the pitch.”

Whatever Kinsella did to soothe his team’s nerves, it worked: Havas beat out Horizon, UM and incumbent Media vest to win agency of record duties for the rapidly expanding prepaid cell phone company, which is expected to spend up to $300 million on marketing in North America this year.

Thus began a series of wins— including Universal Music Group, Swarovski, Hallmark and Dow Jones— that amounted to $700 million in new media spend, contributed to revenue growth in the 40 percent range, solidified the self-described “humble” network’s client roster and played a large role in securing Adweek’s U.S. Media Agency of the Year for 2016.

Better Together

“If there’s one thing I want you to remember about Havas,” says Kinsella, “it’s #Better Together. When I start a new business pitch, that’s the first line.”