FOUNDER
Zohaib Mughal
Founder, Qissa Creative Agency
Fifteen years as a corporate Management Consultant. A parallel career as a Creative behind the camera. Qissa is where those strengths fused into one.
15 years programme and project management
Freelance camera, photography, and video production
Narrative strategy and brand storytelling
Based in London. Working across the UK and internationally
THE BACKGROUND
Why a Management Consultant started a
creative agency.
For fifteen years I managed complex programmes for some of the UK's largest organisations. Transformation projects. Delivery frameworks. The kind of work where what gets agreed has to be what gets delivered, and the people accountable pay the price when it isn't.
In parallel, I was behind the camera. Freelance shoots, photography, video production. Two careers running at the same time, neither one aware of how much it needed the other.
The pattern I kept seeing was the same in both worlds. Work that landed below its original ambition, because the story was never properly locked before the shoot was scheduled. Talented production teams working from a narrative that was never truly agreed. Edits forced to make decisions that should have been made long before a camera came out.
I built Qissa to close that gap. Story first, then production, in that order, with the project management discipline to make sure what was agreed is what gets delivered.
The name is the founding principle. Qissa means story in Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and Punjabi. Passed down through oral traditions. Carried between cultures. Every brand has one. Most have never found the right way to tell it.
WHAT I BELIEVE
The principles behind the work.
1
Story first. Everything else is detail.
Production quality, gear, crew, platform: all of it is secondary to whether the story is worth telling and whether it has been properly understood before anyone picks up a camera.
2
A story that cannot survive interrogation was never ready.
Most productions are decided long before the edit. The story has to be locked, tested, and agreed before production begins. Everything downstream depends on getting that one thing right.
3
Human stories are becoming rarer, and more valuable.
In a world moving toward automated production, the things made by people who were actually there are worth more, not less. Custom tailoring instead of fast fashion.
Authenticity is the only thing AI can't hallucinate
FOUNDER CREDITS INCLUDE
IN MY OWN WORDS
A short introduction.
WORKING WITH QISSA
The person who built it is the person doing the work.
There is no account layer between you and the methodology. No handoff from strategy to a separate production team. The same thinking that goes into the Brand Story Session is the thinking that runs through the shoot and the edit.
Qissa operates as a silent creative partner for agencies that need narrative and production capability without adding to their headcount. All five tiers are available on a white label basis.
BASED:
London, United Kingdom
AVAILABLE:
UK-wide and internationally. Strategy and architecture work remote. Production wherever the project requires.
WHITE LABEL:
All five tiers available as a silent creative partner for agencies.
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