Rolling up an Online Ad Agency Powerhouse: AKQA CEO Tom Bedecarre (Part 3)

After spending some time in New York, Tom moved back to San Francisco with an itch for the technology industry.

SM: Where was your J Walter Thompson job located? TB: It was based out of San Francisco. I had just gotten married and my wife and I moved back to San Francisco in 1984. As it turned out J Walter Thompson was just in the process of loosing the HP account that they hired me for, so I ended up going back to Oglivy & Mather, in the San Francisco office, which was just turning over to become Hal Riney & Partners. He was just negotiating an exit from Oglivy. I jumped on and was there for 6 years, primarily working on consumer packaged goods business again. The entrepreneurial bug hit me and a couple of colleagues whom I knew from Oglivy in New York joined me in San Francisco. We launched our own advertising agency in 1990. We built that agency to be the largest independent agency in San Francisco. It was the agency of the year in 1996.

SM: What was it called? TB: Citron Haligman Bedeccarre. So CHB was independent and we grew very fast, I think we were the fastest growing agency in the United States in 1999 and 2000. We really embraced technology and the DotCom clients. We worked for Satjiv Chahil who is now at HP, and helped him launch the VAIO super slim computers for Sony. He later hired us again at Alcatel, and later on for Palm.

SM: When did you begin looking for funding? TB: In 2000, we were working with so many clients in Silicon Valley that we decided to speak directly to the VCs that were funding these startups. We spoke with one in particular and discussed what we were doing for CNet, Evite, and all of the various DotComs startups. That was Mark Kvamme from Sequoia Capital who had just left CKS. Mark ultimately encouraged us to get an investment and keep growing our business. He introduced us to Francisco Partners which Sequoia was helping launch in 1999 – 2000.

[to be continued]

[Part 2]
[Part 1]

This segment is part 3 in the series : Rolling up an Online Ad Agency Powerhouse: AKQA CEO Tom Bedecarre
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