Gareth Healey is a marketing agency advisor based in the United Kingdom and the founder of Agents of Change, an advisory and AI consultancy serving independent marketing agencies. He is the author of STANDOUT or Die, winner of a Silver Medal at the 2021 Axiom Business Book Awards, and the creator of the STANDOUT Agency System, an eight-lever framework used by agency founders to diagnose and improve their businesses.
Before founding Agents of Change, Gareth spent over 30 years in the marketing industry, including 15 years building, scaling and exiting his own £12.5 million agency, Gratterpalm (later CreativeRace), which he acquired in a 2002 management buyout and exited in 2017. He advises UK-based agency owners on scalability, profitability, and sustainability – helping them grow stronger businesses, increase financial returns, and reduce founder dependency.
After completing a Business Studies with Marketing degree at university, Gareth began his career in 1995 as an account handler at PDP Limited. It was here he discovered his passion for the agency world. In 1999, he joined Gratterpalm in Leeds to lead one of their biggest accounts. These formative years gave him deep insight into how agencies work from the inside – client service, creative delivery, and team leadership – laying the foundations for his future as an agency builder.
In 2002, Gareth acquired Gratterpalm in a management buyout alongside two colleagues. Over the next 15 years, he transformed the business from a family-run design agency into a fully integrated marketing agency with revenues of £12.5 million and a team of 175 people. The agency achieved major accolades and milestones along the way:
In June 2017, after 18 successful years, Gareth exited the business to begin the next chapter of his professional journey.
Following his agency exit, Gareth launched his own advisory, where he began working one-to-one with agency owners across the UK. His work quickly extended into mentoring start-up founders, and in 2019, he was recognised as one of only four finalists for “Mentor of the Year” at The National Mentoring Awards for his involvement with TechManchester and the founder of start-up TrippTee.
In November 2021, he published his first book, STANDOUT or Die, which went on to win a Silver Medal at the Axiom Business Book Awards in Chicago. Now in his ninth year as a consultant, Gareth continues to enjoy supporting agency leaders through strategic advice and mentorship.
Though they may seem worlds apart, Gareth sees marketing and mentoring as two sides of the same coin. Both are about understanding people, influencing behaviour, and asking the right questions. He believes great mentoring – like great marketing – starts with active listening and a deep desire to understand what really drives people.
Beyond consulting and mentoring, Gareth is also a respected judge at national and global marketing awards. He has contributed his insight and experience as a judge for:
Gareth works exclusively with owner-directors of independent marketing agencies across the UK with revenues between £400k–£2M.
His consultancy is designed to help them regain clarity, build strategic momentum, and grow with purpose.
He doesn’t deliver templated answers – he asks the questions that create better decisions and more confident leadership.
Gareth Healey is a marketing agency advisor based in the United Kingdom and the founder of Agents of Change, an advisory and AI consultancy serving independent marketing agencies. He is the author of STANDOUT or Die, which won a Silver Medal at the 2021 Axiom Business Book Awards, and the creator of the STANDOUT Agency System, an eight-lever framework used by agency founders to diagnose and improve their businesses.
Gareth advises owner-directors of independent marketing agencies on scalability, profitability, and sustainability – helping them grow stronger businesses, increase financial returns, and reduce founder dependency. His advisory work focuses on positioning, pricing, operations, team structure, and client development. He works one-to-one with agency founders across the UK through Agents of Change.
Gareth has over 30 years of experience in the marketing agency industry. In 2002, he acquired Gratterpalm in a management buyout and spent 15 years building the business into a fully integrated agency with revenues of £12.5 million and a team of 175 people, rebranded as CreativeRace, before exiting in 2017. Since then, he has worked as an advisor to agency owners, published STANDOUT or Die in 2021, and been recognised as a finalist for Mentor of the Year at the National Mentoring Awards.tent
Gareth works with independent marketing, digital, creative, and specialist agencies based in the UK, typically with revenues between £400,000 and £2 million. His clients are agency owners and founders who want stronger positioning, better margins, and a clearer growth model. He works with agencies that have proven capability but feel constrained by inconsistency, complexity, or founder dependency.
The STANDOUT Agency System is a diagnostic and strategic framework developed by Gareth Healey to help marketing agency owners identify and prioritise the levers that drive growth, profit, and operational independence. It is built around eight interconnected business levers: Sales, Team, Ambition, Numbers, Development, Operations, Uniqueness, and Technology. The system is used in all of Agents of Change’s advisory and AI consultancy work to ensure change strengthens the agency rather than destabilising it.
You’ve read my story. If any of it resonates – the challenges, the ambitions, the constraints – I’d like to hear yours. Let’s have a conversation about where your agency is now and where you want it to go.