Creative Agency KDSP Launches and Brings the Band Back Together

Typically, not-so-casual plans with friends (road trips, larger gatherings, long vacations) rarely make it out of the group chat. This time it did — with the unusual plan being the formation of an agency.

KDSP, a creative “mini agency,” is made up of four full-time employees and founders: ECDs Brock Kirby (copywriter) and Jeff Dryer (art director), Scott Sullivan (managing director) and Mollie Partesotti (strategy). The agency’s name is made up of the first initial of their last names, respectively.

The four working for their agency is almost like a family reunion, except it never ends. Professionally, they have known each other for over a decade, having worked at Wieden+Kennedy from the early- to mid-2010s. Kirby and Sullivan worked as senior copywriter and account executive (respectively) for the independent’s Portland, Oregon, office, focusing on its Nike Global and Nike North America accounts.

In Wieden+Kennedy’s New York office, Dryer was its art director and Partesotti was its global senior brand strategist. The two also worked together in the mid- to late-2010s for the agency Crispin (known at the time as Crispin Porter + Bogusky), with Dryer as creative director and Partesotti as head, strategy.

About one-and-half years ago, before the official formation of KDSP, Kirby and Dryer had been working together as a copywriter and art director duo when they decided to establish their own company after a client approached them. According to Kirby, Sullivan was brought on board from the start to focus on the business and account side.

“We’ve been using freelance strategists, and we realized strategy needed to be a core part of our offering,” Kirby told Campaign; thus, Partesotti joined the crew.

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