Being a barrister and an account handler requires a similar set of skills. Analyzing, being on your feet and the ability to apply concepts are a must have in this industry. When I joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 1983, it was a very high profiled company at the height of its glamour and fame. They won the conservative party account and British Airways, so the idea of working with them was quite appealing. 

Just prior to that I met this guy and told him I’d like to work in advertising. He suggested me to work in London instead of Edinburgh, where I had been living.  Saatchi & Saatchi had just bought his company; so arranging an interview with them was not a problem. When I went for the interview, I was sent to meet Maurice (now Lord) Saatchi himself, who after talking to me for a couple of minutes realised I was not the son of a big shot. He gave me his card and told me to go see the head of recruitment. When I went to see the suggested person telling him I was sent by Lord Maurice, he assumed I was a good friend of Lord Maurice and so he gave me a job. That was how I landed my first gig. With that opportunity, I worked my way up and became managing director 10 years later.

I think I can analyze things quite fast and I’m quite good at understanding people. I’ve always worked hard and never taken things for granted. To be a good advertising person you need to be confident but also a little paranoid - be striving for one thing but worried that everything is going to go wrong. Because the moment you stop worrying is when you will lose your clients. Be paranoid someone is trying to steal your clients and that they are not happy for your success. 

In fact when I was younger, I had imagined myself in this position. I started at the absolute bottom, doing everything from photocopying to making coffee. But I have always aimed for the top job. I am a very competitive person. I believe in competing at the level I am at, and then when I become the best I know I’ll get moved up. 

One thing that I did in my first six months was to put in place the infrastructure needed to link up our network. We have never really marketed ourselves from a technological point of view but with the advancements in technology, having it will prove to be an advantage. We can’t call ourselves a network if we don’t have the right culture. We just needed some basic stuff such as internet, video conferencing and websites. 

Then there is the matter of going out and winning the businesses. We haven’t been very good at that. We haven’t really created much awareness of us as an international network worldwide, with capabilities of handling big global accounts. All our CEOs and MDs own their businesses thus focus on growing their local clients. 

We’re very different from the big multinational American owned networks, who have built their business on international clients. Ours is built on local clients; local business and they produce their own creative work, which I think is a much better way to build an agency. When stronger agencies are built locally, we can then link them together to form an international business. It was not the initial plan but it is how it has worked out. 

To build our international business we will start with existing clients. If you look at our client base across the world, we have every client you can possibly want, somewhere, just not everywhere. Now we will approach our clients who have international business and let them know we are on the market. For example Glaxo-Smith Company is a global company but we only handle them in the UK. They view us as a UK company, so our task is to inform them of our international capabilities. We also handle the global sponsorship of Reebok but I’d like to do their advertising as well. 

I’ve been focusing on growing our digital online capabilities. We will do it not through acquisition but by finding the right talent, with the right motivation and then working with them. 

In reality, a great agency should not be either digital or traditional but an integration of both. I don’t want a company that specializes just on TV or online campaigns but a company capable of everything. We just launched M&C Saatchi in Delhi, Mumbai, Shanghai and Beijing. My vision is for M&C Saatchi ί to be everywhere. I also don’t believe one needs to have a separate digital company.  So if you get a digital business it goes into the digital building and the agency does not become digitally capable. Eventually the agencies will die because clients don’t want an agency that doesn’t understand the new world. I believe traditional and digital arms should be in the same company and people should be capable of handling both things. I say so even though we’d had specialized production teams. 

I admire loyalty and I’m proud of that in myself. I’m quite proud that I haven’t left even though I have been flattered and offered lots of money. I’ve always had another challenge, another horizon. I’ve worked in this industry for a long time so I’ve had other job offers but obviously not a good enough one. 

In fact I don’t want to change teams. I am so competitive and believe strongly in this brand; I champion this brand. I can’t imagine leaving and championing someone else, someone I’ve been trying to destroy for the last 20 years. 

And perhaps I’m not the most loved person in advertising but I think I have gained some respect. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve never chased popularity. I’m also proud of M&C Saatchi; we created it from nothing. The fact that we created something new is something to be proud of, a new force in advertising. 

I’d like my competitors to become worse so I can become better. On a more serious note, I think the public has fallen out of love with advertising over the years. They have become slightly mistrusting of it. Unlike in the 80s when customers were easily sold, today they are much more sophisticated and do not buy into the media easily.

Without being too pompous, I think advertising is quite an honorable way of earning a living. It is for the vital function of society. What advertising does is it promotes democracy, choice and better product at lower price because it creates competition. Thus I’d like the ad industry to advertise itself better so the public will trust us. We should stop telling them we are great and do something good. I am sure we are capable of being great communicators and earnings our consumers trust again.