Ajaz Ahmed and Tiffany Rolfe on how VC-backed indies can avoid becoming de facto holdcos

She described the shift after the buyout as “like night and day, a light switch, oxygen in the room.” For the first time, she said, leadership could align its technology stack, business model and risk profile with R/GA’s own ambitions. “A few of us were able to invest in it. It was partial management buyout, skin in the game. Independence and autonomy is a way different thing versus everything you need having to be approved. It lets us shape our own direction.”

R/GA’s independence is not a boutique reboot. It is a large-scale global network with the capital to match its ambitions. True Link committed a $50m innovation fund to accelerate platform development, tools and new business models. Rolfe framed that backing as essential to staying ahead of the rapid shifts in AI. “Independence doesn’t have to be self-funded. It is more about being self-directed. The right strategic investment actually gives you more independence,” she said.

Ahmed’s journey differs in size but aligns in philosophy. Studio.One, founded from scratch in April after Ahmed’s attempt to exit AKQA from WPP was thwarted, has already grown to around 70 people, including a cohort of high-profile AKQA alumni who made the jump with him. Backed by Atrum Capital and long-standing investors who supported his earlier ventures, Studio.One is positioned to scale at a pace most independents cannot. But Ahmed is determined that growth will not take the agency back into the holding company structures he left behind 12 years after selling AKQA to WPP.

“What our industry needs is not holding companies, but unleashing companies,” he said. “We made a list of all the aspects we did not like about being part of a holding company, and we promised never to do any of those.” That list included the anxiety produced by constant restructures. “Employees have this fear and dread about layoffs. That should not need to exist,” he said. It also included the weight of corporate overhead. “The clients pay for it in expensive fees. The employees pay for it in bureaucracy.”

Studio.One’s operating model reflects an intentional simplicity. Ahmed cut titles to just three and removed time sheets altogether. “The idea of time sheets is archaic,” he said. “We should care about the outcome and the success for the client. It creates a culture where all the employees know we have to exist to create pioneering work.”

As flag bearers for a new type of agency that is independent in spirit but well supported in nature, both leaders stressed that the old definition of scale is outdated. Rolfe argued that technology now drives leverage, not headcount. “Scale used to be head count and deliverables. Now it is the quality of thinking. You build systems for scale. Technology lets you create content in a way you never could before,” she said. “You do not need armies of people. You need smaller, more focused teams solving the biggest challenges.”

That logic shaped R/GA’s first acquisition as an independent agency. The company bought Addition, a 10-person AI systems studio with a distinct culture and operating rhythm, in July. “We decided not to suck them in and turn them into R/GA,” Rolfe said. “They have independence and autonomy, but they are connected to us. Growth is not doing more of the same. It is new business models, new IP, new experiences.”

Ahmed warned that the view of holding companies from the outside often hides what they actually feel like internally. “People talk about economies of scale, but what you learn is there are diseconomies of scale. Layers upon layers. Non-billable overhead. Tons of complexity,” he said. Challenged on the ability to compete with holdcos’ capital expenditure on AI enterprise partnerships, Ahmed said Atrum Capital’s backing gives Studio.One the ability to scale fast, but he is clear that the agency’s value lies in staying nimble. “Atrum is a big investor in the AI sector. We get to see new technologies and apply them very quickly,” he said.

Both leaders resolved that they would not let their new ventures become de facto holding companies in the pursuit of progress. Rolfe was explicit. “You have to design growth. You cannot let it happen to you.” Ahmed agreed. “Culture is the most important. If you protect it, everything else follows.”