SOMETHING FROM NOTHING
Everything has to start somewhere, and for MBM, you only have to go back to 2010. Before all the awards glory, recognition and highprofile clients, Matt Bale was working in a Wellington office just 11 metres squared in total, while his founding partner Sean McCready was sloughing it out in Auckland, sharing his work quarters with an architect.
Nowadays, there’s a bit more room for the pair to stretch out in, as evidenced by its slick and modern Kingsland headquarters. With more than 50 staff across two locations, McCready and managing partner Alysha Delany run MBM’s operations in Auckland, while Bale still bases himself down in the country’s capital.
Recalling MBM’s early years, McCready and Bale describe the agency’s fast and furious ascension with a tinge of both fondness and exhaustion.
“It was pretty full on. But personally, I really enjoyed that period,” says McCready, who first met Bale when the two worked at Saatchi & Saatchi in the 1990s.
“It was lot of hard work and a lot of long hours, but it was quite adrenalising. Luckily it all went really well and the momentum came pretty early.”
But building that momentum was no easy feat, with the duo working their way up by doing what they did best: ruthlessly prioritising the projects that played
