OH Partners, the largest advertising agency in the Valley, has reorganized its company structure to an independently held holding company, following a model of some of the world’s largest advertising firms.

The holding company, which will be called The Harkey Group, will be the umbrella for five separate organizations — OH Partners, Nomadic Agency, Matter Films, OH Strategic Communications and OH Predictive Insights.

The move is meant to let Scott Harkey, the co-founder of OH Partners and the CEO of the Harkey Group, market the firm as a whole, one-stop shop, rather than having each entity market its offerings on their own. Harkey told the Business Journal this will help land larger clients. OH already includes such companies as Walt Disney, National Geographic, AirBnB, and the NBA on its client roster.

Besides Harkey as CEO, the C-suite of the Harkey Group will include OH Partners President Meagan Jackman as CMO; Nomadic’s Tim Washburn as CCO and Greg Derr as CFO. The leadership team will be responsible for assessing client needs and building teams to meet those needs.

The move will also allow Harkey to raise money and acquire other agencies more easily.

“Even as the biggest agency in Phoenix, we still have gaps,” Harkey said.

He’d like to add more specialized firms, including a multicultural agency, to the Harkey Group’s offering.

The restructuring will allow the Harkey Group to acquire other agencies and companies but allow them to operate as themselves — not changing what makes them attractive to Harkey. But by having everyone under the same umbrella, Harkey said it would allow all the brands the company owns to benefit from some synergies, like human resources and accounting.

Harkey said he is actively raising funds to grow the company and said he could see there being one to two acquisitions a year.

“We will be as ambitious as the culture of the other agencies,” Harkey said. “It has to be a good fit and we a have to have the same values.”

While Harkey is proud to be based out of Phoenix, he said he isn’t only looking at growing the company here and would consider acquisitions outside of the state.

OH Partners is the largest advertising agency in the Valley, according to the Business Journal’s research by the number of employees — 135 — and second in local capitalized billing — $140 million.

Harkey said he has a chip on his shoulder that Phoenix isn’t recognized by many in the advertising world as a great city for agencies and creatives and he hopes that by making a roster of great agencies under his holding company, Phoenix will get the attention it deserves.

“We should be known as a creative community,” Harkey said. “There is so much creative talent in Phoenix. It is time we should get the respect.”

The co-founder of OH Partners, Matt Owens, parted ways with Harkey and the agency back in the spring of 2022.