CB Hot Suit Takes: Heath Davy, CEO + Co-Founder, Yarn
CB Hot Suit Takes is our new Q&A series for extremely busy CEOs and senior leaders across the industry ~ covering careers, creativity, challenges and the song that sums it all up. Next in the hot seat is Heath Davy, CEO and Co-Founder of Yarn.
1. What made you get into advertising?
I actually started out on a very different path. The grand plan was to run a big hotel chain, jetting around to exotic locations, picking up a few impressive-sounding languages, and climbing the corporate ladder.
But, that all changed when Dad asked if I’d help run the family business, which happened to include both a design company and production company. Hard to say no to the old man… so I jumped in and started cutting my teeth in the worlds of design, publishing, and production. Changing my degree from a Bachelor in Hospitality Science, to a BCom in Accountancy and Law.
Somewhere along the way the creative bug bit, hard! Ideas started flying around, and before I knew it I’d accidentally wandered into advertising and just… never left. You could say it was probably written in the stars, although having great people and great clients around definitely made it a pretty easy decision to make.
2. Which piece of work are you most proud of, and why?
The Tui “Catch a Million” campaign has always stood out to me as a favourite because it genuinely broke the mould of traditional advertising. It wasn’t just a clever idea, it was a smart workaround. By shifting the focus away from the product and into a nationwide challenge, the campaign found a way to live and breathe in spaces where alcohol advertising typically couldn’t. It became cultural, participatory, and talked about far beyond what a standard campaign could achieve. That kind of thinking, finding the edge of the rules and then creatively working within (and around) them, is something I’ve always admired, not to mention it was a proud moment to have been a part of this campaign.
Closer to home, the work we created for AfterLife Pay tapped into a similar spirit. It took a sharp, slightly uncomfortable truth, the contentious normalisation of buy-now-pay-later schemes for everyday essentials, and flipped it into something people couldn’t ignore. It had impact, humour, and a point of view, which is often what’s missing in safer, more conventional work. What makes it even more meaningful is that some of the brains behind “Catch a Million” are the people I’ve now partnered with in our own agency. There’s a shared belief in pushing ideas further, finding smarter ways to connect, and making work that doesn’t just fill space, but actually earns attention and creates talkability.
3. What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role right now?
Honestly, the biggest challenge right now is balancing the pace the industry is moving at with the kind of considered work we actually want to put into the world.
The tools, platforms and expectations around creativity are evolving incredibly quickly, which is exciting, but as an independent agency you’re also making sure the business stays healthy, the team inspired, and the work still having real craft behind it.
In New Zealand we’re lucky, it’s a tight-knit industry full of great clients and seriously good talent. But being a smaller agency the flip side is there’s nowhere to hide, unlike a big global machine, you’ve got to stay sharp, stay curious, and keep finding ways to punch above your weight (on a fairly regular basis).
For me, the challenge, and the opportunity, is making sure we keep producing work we’re genuinely proud of, while building an agency where people actually want to come and work. If we can get that balance right, everything else tends to fall into place.
4. What’s the most recent thing you’ve learned – professionally or personally?
I’ve actually been learning a lot from Hyrox, a sport I’ve been competing in globally of late, which is a funny way of segueing into how I think about work.
One thing it has really driven home is the power of consistency. In Hyrox you can’t just rely on one big effort, it’s a mix of running, strength, pacing yourself, and pushing through when things start to get uncomfortable. Running an independent creative agency feels pretty similar some days.
It’s easy to chase the big wins or the shiny moments in our industry, but the reality is most progress comes from showing up, doing good work consistently, and backing your team.
The other reminder is that performance is never really a solo thing. Whether it’s a training partner in sports, or the great people within the agency, you’re always better when you’ve got good people around you pushing in the same direction.
5. What song best sums up your career so far?
“My Journey, My Legacy” by Jue is a go-to at the moment as it’s a great motivational training song and it sums up my career, which hasn’t really been a straight line, but more that, a journey.
I started out thinking I was heading in a completely different direction… and then life politely suggested a detour. So, one sidestep later, things slowly snowballed into a career in advertising and eventually co-founding an independent agency.
Looking back, it’s definitely not one big lightbulb moment, more a series of small steps, good people, the odd risky call, plenty of life lessons, and enough blind optimism to keep saying “yeah, let’s give that a go.”
So the “journey” part feels very real. And the “legacy” part is what you start thinking about later on, building great work, great relationships and hopefully leaving something behind that lasts longer than just the campaigns.
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