Reshaping the Future of Advertising Through a “Company of One” Mindset
Rishad Tobaccowala explains why the true future of the industry isn’t about remote work or AI, but about a fundamental shift in how individuals and brands define their purpose, build reputation, and create value
Over his 40-year career, Rishad Tobaccowala has worked across almost every area of marketing and strategy, including brand, advertising, media, database, direct, and interactive marketing. He helped create one of the first interactive groups and digital agencies and served as the Global Chief Strategist and Growth Officer for the Publicis Groupe. Rishad has also served as the Chairman of Digitas and Razorfish, two of the world’s largest marketing transformation agencies, with over 11,000 employees.
In recognition of his contributions to the field, Rishad was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame this year.
Today, Tobaccowala is an author, speaker, teacher, and advisor helping people, organizations, and teams reinvent themselves to remain relevant in changing times. Rishad speaks on change, future trends, and transforming workforces to leaders in a range of industries, from internet platforms and technology to financial services and consumer goods. Companies that have invited him to speak include Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Akamai, Intuit, The New York Times, Conde Nast, Paramount, Walmart, McDonald's, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Bayer, Pepsi, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Rishad is also the author of two books: Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data (2020) and Rethinking Work: Seismic Changes in the Where, When, and Why (2025). Continuum readers know Rishad from his weekly column, “The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past,” which is read by over 30,000 leaders every week. Rishad is also the host of “What Next?” a podcast where he speaks with a range of leaders across business, technology, academia, and the arts on how to make sense of the cultural, social, and business changes transforming us all.
The Continuum sat down with Rishad for a conversation about his impressive career, his new book, and his vision for the future of work. The discussion was so wide-ranging and interesting that we are publishing it as a two-part series.
Last week, we discussed Rishad’s career, his induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame, and the role of large holding companies in the advertising industry. This week we’ll talk about how the pandemic changed not just how we work but why we work, and get his advice on how companies and employees can prepare for the future in this time of rapid change.
You published a book this past January called Rethinking Work: Seismic Changes in the Where, When, and Why. Can you tell us about the motivation behind this book?
This is my second book. I was in the room when my wife had our first daughter. It was quite a painful process—mostly for her, of course—and she said, “Okay, we’re done, never again.” Then, three years later, that’s forgotten, and we had another baby. It’s the same with books. The process is painful, and I said I’d never do it again, but five years later or so, I did.
I started writing and thinking about it in late 2021. At the time, we were in the midst of the pandemic, but vaccines had become available, and people were starting to discuss returning to the office. I wrote the book for three reasons.
The first reason is that I began to realize that most people find happiness when they have three things going for them: physical and emotional health; quality relationships with family, friends, and colleagues; and meaningful, rewarding work. If you have those three things, you tend to be doing okay. You are also likely to earn money because you’re working, and if the work is meaningful, you may not even need it to be a lot of money.
Of course, these things are all related. If you have meaningful, purposeful, rewarding work, you're likely to live longer. People who retire or are forced to retire and don’t do anything often age faster and become unhealthy. Also, if you involve yourself with meaningful, purposeful, rewarding work, it's a lot less likely that you’ll come home and kick the dog or slam the door or yell at your spouse. Essentially, meaningful, purposeful, and rewarding work not only helps you live longer, but it also benefits your personal relationships.
So, the importance of meaningful, purposeful, rewarding work was my first reason for writing the book.
My second reason for writing the book was that I began to believe work would change more between 2019 and 2029 than it had in the preceding 50 years.
You say 2019. Did you believe this before the pandemic?
Oh yes. My first book, Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data, came out in January 2020. The last time I’d touched it was September 2019. We didn’t know anything about COVID yet; there was no virus and no talk of lockdowns. Yet the second chapter of my book was about how you work from home.
It’s called “The Darker Side of Brighter Screens,” and is about how to manage workflow when everyone is looking at a screen.
Okay, back to the second book. You were saying the second reason for writing it was this significant shift in how we work that was coming. Can you say more about that?
When COVID-19 happened, it became very clear that in January 2020, we were still relying on 2008 technology. By March 2020, we discovered we actually had 2020 technology in front of us. When we were all forced to work from home, we were able to do so. Productivity didn’t decline, and profitability began to increase. Then I began to see that what had been a downturn in employee engagement started reversing. People were more engaged even though they were not going to the office.
The third reason I wrote the book was that no one was paying attention to these changes. Leaders were so fixated on returning to the office, and that has nothing to do with the future of work. Nothing. I just kept thinking that the most important thing we do is changing more than ever, and none of these company leaders are changing the way they talk about work. So, I wrote the book.
“Essentially, meaningful, purposeful, and rewarding work not only helps you live longer, but it also benefits your personal relationships.”
Your book begins by explaining the five reasons why work is changing so much. Can you give us the abridged version of these reasons?
This is essentially the first five chapters of the book, and I’ve had CEOs and C-Suite executives say that they’ll never think about working the same way after reading this.
The first reason is a series of facts. I offer suggestions about what they mean, but I also welcome the reader to decide the implications for themselves. Here they are:
● The United States population is going into decline. It takes 2.1 children per mother to keep the population the same. The number in the US is 1.6.
● Despite our fixation with Gen-Z, the only group that is actually growing in size is people over 50.
● Most (75%) of America’s wealth is held by people over 50. This is not just the only group that’s growing; it’s the group that has money.
● Attitudes are shifting; 62% of baby boomers believe in capitalism compared to 22% of Gen Z.
● The racial and ethnic make-up of our country is changing; 49% of Gen Z identify as non-Caucasian.
● Only 18% of our country lives in nuclear families compared to 78% in 1960.
Those facts are undeniable, and they’re not going to change.
That’s the first reason work is changing. The second reason is technology, particularly AI. The thing about AI is that it makes knowledge and experience worth almost nothing. Moving forward, it’s going to be about expertise and skills. The fact that you have 25 years of experience won’t matter unless that experience can be turned into crystallized linkages.
The third reason is marketplaces like Shopify or Etsy. And this is related to the fourth reason, which is the rise of the side hustle. This year, more people in the United States will be 1099 contract employees than W-2 employees. I think we've entered an era of de-bossification, but no one has told the bosses, and they’re getting more bossy by trying to make everyone come back to the office.
The last change is about what shifted when we emerged from the pandemic. People still think the impact of COVID on work was primarily where we work, but the evidence I gathered for my book shows that the real shift was in why we work. It’s true that if my business is not part of a massage parlor or dentist’s office, I wouldn’t have an office. You’re defeating yourself. You're constraining your cost, your agility, and your talent, and your competitors will clean your clock. But the real thing we need is a change in mindset.
What do you think is the main mindset shift that we need, and how can we get there?
I think for 2029, you have to ask yourself, Why does my company exist? I believe in the future, there'll be fewer and fewer jobs but more and more work. Your company can’t just be a place where jobs are collected to get work done, because now, I can work without having a job.
Right now, I don’t have a job. I'm working more than I ever have, and to some extent, I get paid better than I did even when I was one of the most senior people at Publicis. But I don't have a job. For years, we’ve thought that scale was an advantage, but in many industries, it becomes a disadvantage.
In the book, I describe an ecosystem of the future where most companies are much smaller and most of the work is done outside the company with other people, partners, and suppliers. I think of the ecosystem as whales and plankton. Consultants like me are plankton. My clients are whales. Or you can think of YouTube as the whale and creators as the plankton. You’ll need an occasional squid or fish, and that’s the ecosystem.
I think everyone's future is about companies of one. Whether you’re in a company that has one person or 100, you should learn to operate like you’re in a company of one. It doesn't mean working by yourself. I was a company of one in a company of 100,000. It’s about developing a craft or a skill that makes people want to talk to you. For me, it was about strategy for a long time, and now it’s about thinking about the future. Success as a company of one requires building a reputation and being very collaborative. You have to work well with other people.
You can do this in any company, but the whole idea is that you should be able to leave your company and keep working even if you don’t have a job.
“The thing about AI is that it makes knowledge and experience worth almost nothing. Moving forward, it’s going to be about expertise and skills.”
You have become known as an expert in planning for the future, but there is so much flux in the world right now, and many things seem to be changing rapidly. How can we look ahead when there is so much uncertainty?
I came up with a new idea about two months ago when I was in the middle of a presentation. It was a full-day conference for investors interested in marketing and advertising technology. The attendees were venture capitalists, private equity hedge funds, and strategic investors. The organizers asked me to open the conference and then do a closing, in which I tried to draw out the themes of the day.
One of the key things that people said was that we were living in this very confusing and changing world. We have tariffs one day and no tariffs the next; we have return-to-office rules, and we have AI. I suggested that we’re all going into a country we know nothing about, and everyone in the room could succeed in the future if they learned to think like an immigrant.
Immigrants think like outsiders, and they think like underdogs. As a first-generation immigrant, if I were sitting in a castle with a moat around it, I wouldn’t see the moat as a source of protection; I would see it as a source of water that could be used to flood me out of the castle. Thinking like that is how I built plans to destroy the businesses I worked for and counter plans to make sure that no one ever destroyed us.
The other thing that immigrants do is invest in the future. They are very willing to sacrifice now for success later, either for their families or their work. Businesses don’t like sacrifice; they like results. You can’t get to the future by always meeting quarterly results. Immigrants know that.
There was silence when I first said it, but people really understood, and there was a lot of applause at the end. Someone even made t-shirts after the conference that said, “Think like an immigrant.”
“People still think the impact of COVID on work was primarily where we work, but the evidence I gathered for my book shows that the real shift was in why we work.”
June 13, 2025
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