Tony Handley, a founder of Leeds agency Brahm, has passed away after a short battle with cancer.
Handley was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in late 2024 and undergoing treatment on the illness, which was initially thought to be operable, at The Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. In typically ebullient fashion on Facebook stating “Let battle commence!”
Handley stepped back from Brahm in 2003 as part of a succession plan that saw ownership of the business pass to board directors John Morgan and Julie Hanson as its joint managing directors, while the agency’s remaining founding partners, Mike Baxandall, Clive Rand and Handley, were to retain the building from which Brahm operates to provide a “pension fund” when they chose to sell it.
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The succession plan was designed to strike a balance between satisfying the financial needs of the retiring founders and releasing equity that is affordable to their successors, while avoiding the danger of fall-out and disintegration of the then-£30 million-billing business.
The scheme allowed the agency’s remaining founding partners, Mike Baxandall, Clive Rand and Handley, to retain the building from which Brahm operated to provide a “pension fund” when they choose to sell it.
Brahm merged with sister agency Swamp in 2010 to become Brass having “rebranded to become ‘a digitally centred’ marketing agency” and was consequently voluntarily dissolved in 2011. Brass itself continued for another decade before entering liquidation in January 2022.
Handley wasn’t idle following his departure from the agency, and his “retirement” saw him spending stints in the worlds of fine art and hospitality, taking over The Stable Holiday Cottages in his Knaresborough home town. He also acted as chair of the Friends of Knaresborough for several years – an organisation initially founded to manage the funding of the town’s 2012 attempt on the World Zip Record, but which far outlived its original purpose –and had a 10-year spell as mayor of the North Yorkshire town from 2014-2024.
The news was announced online by former Adline editor and current Hong Kong Trade Council editorial chief Tony Murray: “While we’re barely into 2025, we’ve already lost two of the giants of the ad agency world that once flourished – yes, really! – outside of London.
George Wallis, sadly, departed earlier this year. He was the co-founder and Big Boss of Wallis Tomlinson, Brum’s most advertisingiest ad agency and a serial lunch partner in days long gone.
Just yesterday, he was followed by Tony Handley, who was, among many other things, the ‘H’ from the once-mighty BRAHM, one of my favourite Leeds agencies. Tony I knew less well but admired no less.”
Caraline Dyson, the now New Zealand-based former business development manager at Brahm, added: “Tony Handley was one in seven billion. Hopefully, he and Mike Baxandall are cloud racing as I type. Forever remembered as the cream of Yorkshire.”
