Niki Sahni’s Courage agency is leveraging authenticity to achieve growth

Just one year ago, Niki Sahni (BCom’06) launched an independent adverting agency, and already it has brought on big name clients like KFC, Diageo, Scotiabank, and Nestlé. Sahni credits authenticity as a factor in the rapid rise of the agency, called Courage. “From the jump, we’ve talked about pitching business as ourselves, in a style that works for us,” says Sahni. “We evaluate whether a client is a good fit culturally, and whether it is a type of work we want to do, in the collaborative way that we like to work.” And, of course, there is a financial component to choosing which clients to work with. “At the end of the day, we run a business, and being profitable allows us to treat our people well, to work with pro bono clients that we believe in, and to reinvest in what we do.