Zak Mroueh can see the forest for the trees. No more digging through the weeds. No more sweating the small stuff. He’s slowly stripped himself of his CCO and CEO hats, stepped into the role of creative chairman, and is now, simply, a leader with a vision.

“My job is to select the projects I want to focus on, jump in as needed, and coach, mentor and support our creative leaders,” the Zulu Alpha Kilo founder tells strategy.

“When I started the agency 15 years ago,” he goes on, “I set the creative vision of what we wanted to become. And now we’re really seeing it unfold. We haven’t achieved everything. However, one part of the two-paragraph vision was to have global clients want to come to us to solve their challenges – and that’s happening.”

Mroueh is talking, in part, about when his agency made Canadian advertising history. Earlier this year it became one of the first Canadian independents to have a homegrown commercial air during the American broadcast of the SuperBowl. The spot was for Amsterdam-based client Booking. com, and a big contributor to the campaign’s success was the leadership team that he – alongside CEO Mike Sutton – handpicked and empowered to take the reins.