Built inside agencies
Nick has founded, managed, and sold multiple public relations and marketing agencies. His advice comes from operating businesses, leading teams, serving clients, and making the decisions agency owners face every day.
Agency owner. Author. Advisor.
Nick Leighton helps marketing agency owners make more money, create more free time, and build a business that supports their personal goals.
25+ years
Building, managing, advising, and selling agencies
Global
Work across six continents
2 books
Business ownership, AI, and practical leadership
Direct advice
Experience first. Business theatre never.
A global operating view
Over more than 25 years, Nick has worked across North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—advising Fortune 500 companies, smaller businesses, nonprofit organizations, and public leaders.
Business and people
Nick studied psychology before earning an MBA from Leicester Business School. That combination shapes a practical approach to strategy: understand the commercial problem, the people involved, and what will actually move the work forward.
Author and educator
Nick is the author of Exactly Where You Want To Be and The AI Effect. He has also taught graduate and postgraduate classes in marketing, crisis communications, and coaching as an adjunct professor at Chapman University.
The business is there to power your life—not consume it.
Experience that travels.
Different markets and business models create different problems. The useful patterns are the ones that hold up across all of them.
Agency strategy
Positioning, revenue, delivery, systems, leadership, and the operating decisions behind sustainable growth.
Speaking
Practical conversations about AI, leadership, storytelling, change, and building a better business.
Facilitation
Structured sessions that turn competing ideas into clear priorities, named actions, and follow-through.
Entrepreneurship
Firsthand experience starting, managing, and selling businesses—not advice observed from the sidelines.
Education
Psychology, an MBA, and years of teaching business leaders how to turn insight into action.
A little humanity
Travel, music, good wine, Champagne Moments—and a firm belief that running a business should still be fun.
What agency owners worked through.
The work is practical and personal: focus, structure, accountability, stronger leadership, better systems, and a business built for the next stage.
Larry
Customer story
Maggie
Knowing when it was time to engage an adviser—and how to choose the right one.
Torrey
Creating sharper focus, accountability, and meaningful milestones.
Imari
Staying focused and accountable while building #HowToHuman.
Evan
Moving from startup mode to the structure required for the next stage.
Dalip
Breaking meaningful goals down and keeping progress moving.
Books and latest articles.
The AI Effect
An Amazon bestseller ranked #1 in Communication in Management, Business Communication Skills, and Customer Relations.
Get the book
Exactly Where You Want To Be
A Business Owner’s Guide to Passion, Profit, and Happiness—built around the belief that running a business should be fun.
Get the bookLatest Entrepreneur Magazine Articles
Read Nick’s latest practical thinking on entrepreneurship, agency growth, leadership, and building a better business.
Read Entrepreneur articlesLatest Forbes Magazine Articles
Explore Nick’s contributions to Forbes Coaches Council on leadership, strategy, growth, and the decisions facing business owners.
Read Forbes articlesWhat’s your Champagne Moment?
Start with the outcome you want, then build the business and plan that can make it real.