John Birnsteel is only the seventh CEO in the 111-year history of Doe-Anderson — the Louisville, Kentucky agency where employee tenure averages eight years (three times the industry average), the Maker’s Mark relationship stretches back more than 50 years and the ownership structure requires people to invest their own money. Doe-Anderson recently won Ad Age’s Best Agency Culture award and became a certified B Corp, but John is quick to point out that neither milestone changed how the agency operates. They documented what was already happening. “We’re not good because we’re old,” he says. “We’re old because we’re good.”
When people own the company, they treat it like theirs
Doe-Anderson has been employee-owned since the 1940s, when Warwick Anderson sold the agency to its people. This isn’t passive ownership — employees take money out of their own pockets to invest. “People who are part of the team, not just seen as the labor force, but owners in the enterprise, really treat it as their company,” John says.
That ownership structure also serves as a moat. John gets about five emails a day from venture capital firms looking to acquire. He deletes them. Independence at Doe-Anderson isn’t a talking point — it’s a financial commitment backed by every person in the building.
The long view beats the quarterly panic
John started his career at Doe-Anderson, left to work at WPP and IPG shops around the world, then came back. The difference he noticed: independent ownership lets the agency make decisions that aren’t quarter to quarter. “We’re not making rash moves based upon a fear of something’s going to happen. We can ride that out.”
The approach is evolution, not revolution. When changes happen, the team explains why, explains what employees need to do differently and provides the tools to do it. Stability isn’t resistance to change — it’s change without chaos.
Keep your people, keep your clients
John draws a direct line between employee retention and client retention. Compare staff tenure with client tenure across agencies, and he believes you’ll find a clear correlation. Maker’s Mark has been with Doe-Anderson for 50 years.
The reason goes deeper than loyalty. Long relationships create the psychological safety needed for ambitious creative work. “If you have strong relationships, you can have frank conversations. You’re much more likely to feel that you have the freedom to make mistakes, and the freedom to cross the line and be pulled back.” That comfort is where the best work comes from.
What CMOs should be asking their agencies
For CMOs evaluating agencies, John’s advice is straightforward: ask if the people in the pitch are the people who’ll do the work. At a 140-person independent shop, the answer is almost always yes. Leadership rolls up their sleeves. No bait and switch.
He also suggests looking at the track record of stability — not as a guarantee, but as evidence. An agency that keeps talent for years is telling you something. An agency that churns through people every 18 months is telling you something too.
B Corp as a mirror, not a makeover
Doe-Anderson’s B Corp certification wasn’t a transformation — it was documentation. “If you’ve been in business for over a century, you have some idea about what it takes to be a sustainable company,” John says. The process helped the agency think more structurally about what it had been doing intuitively, from local sourcing (the office coffee comes from a roaster in West Louisville) to community investment.
The real benefit: metrics to measure improvement. Not every agency needs B Corp certification, but the exercise of looking at yourself through that lens makes the business stronger.
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