In the year or so since Kristian has officially taken charge at Naga DDB Tribal, the company has seen its revenue for 2016 exceed its targets with an incremental gain in new business wins to close the year. The company has also revamped its positioning, added new capabilities to its arsenal as well as attaining new business wins from outside of Malaysia. Its staff size has also grown from 145 employees to 170 strong to manage the surplus of additional projects that the agency has been tasked with. The office has also seen an expansion in space, size and units according to the growth the agency has seen in the past year. With consolidation of services in mind, he has seen fit to merge different agencies within the Foetus Group to offer their clients a unified entity of marketing products and services and encouraged collaboration amongst the employees across the group.

Collaboration within the industry has been a key focus of Kristian’s with numerous partnerships having been struck up amongst media, technology entities as well as other creative and digital agencies with a mindset of combining existing assets and capabilities to offer clients a more diverse and higher level of marketing offerings. With a view to increase revenue and promote internal acquisition of knowledge for employees, new set-ups within Naga DDB Tribal have been created with key staff tasked with driving these initiatives.

“Our industry has and is currently going through a state of evolution that has been detrimental in some instances to many agencies, however I view it as an opportune moment to attempt to put our own imprint on the industry, diversify our abilities and not only promote horizontal growth but also vertical growth for our companies and our employees. This is the era of collaboration and as much as we are in the process of building agencies and businesses of the future, we need to be aware of instances whereby we can partner and work with other businesses to drive our own personal growth regardless of whether they operate in the same field as ourselves. If no one else has thought of a solution to a problem, be the first to offer a way forward by creating your very own methodology.”

“Even before putting on the CEO’s hat, I was of the opinion that we like a lot of other advertising agencies were lacking direction and a core objective behind our very reason to exist. The first step was to put together a team of individuals that I trusted absolutely and to communicate my personal mission, vision and goals for our immediate future. I try as much as possible to place myself in other’s shoes and attempt to see how much my goals coincide with their own. I always find myself repeating two personal philosophies; the first being that we as human beings cannot survive by ourselves, we require support groups around us to function and similarly as a business we need to open ourselves up to possibilities and beneficial partnerships outside our own walls even with our supposed competitors. The second philosophy would be always having the bigger picture in mind with a view to continuously build. The issue with some CEO’s in my view would be that they have short-term objectives that ignore an idea of what the future might be like. I suppose as a business owner, by default I am able to think, worry and idealize what the longer term might look like which in my mind, makes me determined to constantly build in addition to attending to my responsibilities as a day-to-day leader.”

The values of which Kristian subscribes to are illustrated by his agencies newly established principles entitled the 3C’s namely that of curiosity, collaboration and care. “The greatest entrepreneurs of whom many of us aspire to constantly are on the lookout for what’s next to invest in, to grow and make something more out of it. They enjoy working with a multitude of talented individuals to inspire them and learn from them. The degree of meticulousness they possess is amazing in that they care about not only the product but also the people that are invested in it. These traits are something that I try and embrace and I hope that my colleagues will also adopt as their own. When we invest in anything new for any of our companies, we hope that that investment will be something our employees can utilize as a tool to expand their horizons and potentially have an ownership in for years to come. I honestly feel that having a vested interest in growing the careers of employees and caring about their future will subsequently have a great effect on the company in the long run. This is in all sincerity the most rewarding part of the job. If I had any advice for anyone it would be to always plan for the future of not only yourself but for the people you care about as the satisfaction level would be greater than if you were to simply do it for yourself. “