Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Morrison Agency, USA
Being members of ICOM provides our firm with three very big benefits. Through ICOM, we can provide existing clients with unmatched international capabilities and knowledge. In an era of globalization, ICOM enables us to compete with much bigger agencies for clients with international marketing and communications needs. And last, but certainly not least, is the rich learning, knowledge sharing and best practice insight we get from interacting with fellow network members.
Karen Seamen
President and COO
Cramer-Krasselt, USA
Many of our clients require us to determine if a positioning or approach is appropriate in other parts of the world. Others require that we manage their business in other regions. ICOM has allowed us to succeed. We couldn't successfully do business without ICOM.
Tina VonderHaar
President and CEO
Brighton, USA
As CEO for a mid-sized marketing/advertising agency, finding peers to share best practices, learn from, and partner with is a challenge. ICOM makes this easy by recruiting like-minded, successful independent agencies around the globe to do just this. Not only do I look forward to our bi-annual meetings for social connections, but I find the meetings to be productive and useful so that I can share what I've learned with the agency at large when I return. We are hired because we are liked and trusted. This group of independent agencies is made up of people I like and trust.
Annika Avikson
Managing Partner
AD Angels, Estonia
Most ICOM members have been in the marketing communications business way longer than we have. We have learned so much from our more experienced agency partners. Sharing their stories of their mistakes as well as their successes has helped us grow our agency and serve our clients.
Kati Lanu
Chief Executive Officer
Avalon, Finland
For many companies here, the entire Nordic region is considered ‘home.’ Some companies even extend that designation to all of Europe. Teaming with other ICOM agencies, we can help our clients develop, expand and grow as they cross national borders—and we can serve their needs ranging from strategic marketing to creative solutions. Our cross-border teams work seamlessly to ensure that language differences and cultural nuances are just right and that execution of initiatives and day-to-day operations are too.
Rino Ferrari
President
Rino, Brazil
For agencies like ours, global knowledge sharing among peers—other agency principals that we don’t compete against—is invaluable. So is being able to serve our clients in other countries with trusted partners firmly rooted in their respective markets. While all of us have diverse experiences, we share an entrepreneurial spirit that motivated many of us to leave multinational agencies so that we can be client-focused and client-facing.
Peter O’Leary
Managing Director
AMBA, Australia
ICOM is a remarkable collection of savvy people. The common traits: combine know-how with can-do; passionate about business; open to new ideas; generously sharing knowledge; eager to see others succeed. Individually impressive, collectively inspiring.
Barbie Wentworth
President
Miller Brooks, USA
The sharing of best practices among fellow agencies is invaluable to the operations side of our business—this benefits the agency, our customers and our employees. In addition, the network extends our reach while putting a wide range of expertise at our clients' disposal.
David Longden
Group Chief Executive Officer
Golley Slater, UK
Being a member of the ICOM global network presents us with real opportunities to develop our business intellectually and across borders. We have clients that want us to expand what we do for them in new markets. Our ICOM partners provide known capability and local cultural expertise to speed up this growth, with a higher chance of success than trying to expand on our own.
Alvin Tsui
Chief Executive Officer
United Communications Group, Taiwan
As the largest independent agency and ranked third among all agencies in Taiwan, we have found great value in connecting to the world via ICOM. This helps us remain at the forefront of the advertising and marketing communications business, expertise that allows us to give our clients the best service with a global view on how to reach their business goals and build their brands.
We love being a part of ICOM because it has brought us business we wouldn’t have had otherwise, as well as given us readily accessible known partners for our clients expanding into other territories. We have had a number of successful collaborations with ICOM agencies in other markets over the past 15 years, some as lead agency and others as the expert local partner.
Ali Asgar Mir
Chairman & Managing Director
IKON Advertising & Marketing, UAE
We joined the ICOM global network because we wanted to remain independent while being able to offer global expertise to our clients ‘locally’ without opening offices all around the world. We share accounts with our ICOM partners in different regions of the world.
June Kiragu
Managing Director
Brainwave Communications, Kenya
ICOM provides us with fantastic global networking opportunities especially during our regional and international meetings. We get to ‘travel the world’ in one sitting. The network gives us a sense of belonging and a platform to share our cultures, ideas, resources and experiences.
Raymond Sun
Chief Executive Officer
Revo Branding, China
China today is more than twice as big as it was a decade ago. So, the good news is, even with slower growth, China will continue to be an engine of global output. We are part of ICOM for two reasons: 1) to have access to global resources and partners within the network and be able to assist our clients to expand their businesses internationally and 2) to provide our fellow members around the globe, who manage international accounts, with a strong foothold in China.
