The holdco exodus is becoming a founding, independent class

By “people like me”, she means the wave of senior execs leaving the holdcos in droves. Some jumped, others were pushed — many under compromised agreements that allow a push to look like a jump. Whatever the backstory, the draw of starting something new has never felt strong. Not because returning is too cutthroat or bruising, but because — for the first time in a long time — it feels like building something that can stand on its own is actually possible.

Take Ajaz Ahmed. Just six months after exiting WPP’s AKQA as its CEO, he launched marketing agency Studio.One last month. If his parting words in The Times are any clue, he’s not interested in boomeranging back.

And the truth is, he doesn’t have to. Building ambitious, successful businesses outside the holdco model is more viable than ever. The demand is there — CMOs are actively seeking out specialist shops that move faster and think sharper. So is the funding. Private equity firms, flush with dry powder and hungry for growth, are betting on these upstarts as the smarter play. 

“It all feeds into this sense that, for some people at holdcos, the constant grind of managing margins — weekly, monthly, quarterly — on work that’s increasingly driven by procurement just isn’t worth the stress anymore,” said Jim Houghton, partner at M&A advisors Waypoint. “If you’re financially secure and have a track record of building and running businesses, there’s no reason to stay in that setup.”

That’s the math more leaders are doing. And the numbers are starting to add up. 

Just last week, Lynsey Atkin, Chris Waitling and Rebecca Lewis launched Baby Teeth, a creative company built for brands, talent and entertainment. All three have spent years inside the machinery of marketing services, whether at holdcos, consultancies or somewhere in the blur between the two. They know the system works. And they’ve opted out of it. 

There’s no stated ambition to build a network, no quiet intention to sell back in once the timing’s right. If anything, they’re building the kind of business that assumes they won’t need to. Once leaving the system was a phase. Now it’s the plan. 

“There’s a lot of talk about the current model not working, but for us that was never the focus,” said Rebecca Lewis, founder and partner at Baby Teeth. “Instead we wanted to imagine what was possible in a completely new landscape and build a creative company that works for the world that’s emerging.”

As bullish as these comments may sound, they’re not driven entirely by ego. Founders like Atkin, Watling and Lewis are simply operating in a different era — one where independence doesn’t have to be a phase and scale doesn’t require surrender. 

But it’s not just CMO demand and PE money making this possible. What’s really changed is the ecosystem itself. There’s now a broader, louder network of like-minded operators who’ve already decided the old endgame just isn’t worth circling back to. 

One of them is Anthony Freedman. He financially backed Baby Teeth through his own independent venture Common Interest — a company he launched in 2023, a year after stepping down as CEO and chair of Havas Australia and New Zealand. Since then, he’s steadily built a portfolio of agencies, tech firms and consultancies at the intersection of marketing, technology and entertainment.

“Done correctly, the sum of the parts will be greater than the individual elements, creating a closely connected ecosystem, providing CMOs with what they are looking for, and unlocking the compounding opportunities for each individual company and the group,” said Freedman.

On paper, it may look like he’s following the holdco playbook. But Freedman sees it differently. The old guard, he said, isn’t built to unlock that kind of potential. Common Interest is. Going back would defeat the point.

“We have the capital we need to create the company we all envisioned. We don’t need to be part of something bigger right now,” he continued. “In time, that may become a scenario we begin to consider but I don’t see one of the established holding companies being a natural home for Common Interest.”

That’s a big departure from the mindset 15 years ago. Back then selling up wasn’t just common — it was expected. 

“When we sold Holler to Leo Burnett in 2010, that was the playbook: prove you’re disruptive, then plug into the machine,” said James Kirkham, who left the Publicis Groupe-owned agency five years later. At the time, he felt there was no other choice. 

“We had to be inside a machine to ensure I still had top tier conversations,” Kirkham added. 

Without the backing of a holding company, Holler would’ve kept missing out on big accounts — even as it offered the kind of mobile and social expertise advertisers craved. 

“I described it as always playing Europa League not Champions league, unless we sold,” said Kirkham. “It gave me personally access to world class CMOs in different territories from Sao Paolo to Singapore, rather than before mainly being a disruptive digitally smart creative force in London.”

Timing, as ever, is everything. What once felt like a now-or-never moment to sell has become more of a wait-and-see. The playbook’s changing: with capital flowing and scale more accessible, it’s no longer just about getting out at the right time. It’s about staying in long enough to make it matter. 

“The goal for our business is to remain very boutique by design so that we can focus on the quality of projects not the scale of them because we don’t want to operate in the same way the holdcos do,” said James Allen, a former Dentsu exec who started boutique agency Extra with colleague Joey Medici last year. 

That’s not a casual preference. It’s a calculated bet on where the market is headed. Founders like Allen and Medici aren’t chasing growth for growth’s sake. They’re building with intention: small by design, selective on purpose. In a market defined by sticky inflation, volatile interest rates and global uncertainty, experience and focus aren’t luxuries — they’re differentiators. And with AI flattening the operational playing field, boutique no longer means underpowered. It means precise for CMOs. 

‘There’s this massive group of mid-market companies who haven’t been served well by the holdco model that never really understood what they needed,” said Medici. “Instead, they would staff their accounts with people who were working on multiple accounts simultaneously. We’re building something that has empathy for clients who have been in that situation.” 

Still, the holding company model hasn’t lost all its gravitational pull, especially for founders who know how to build with an eye toward acquisition. 

James Murphy and David Golding are proof. After leaving RKCR/Y&R in 2007, they launched adam&eve in 2008. Four years later, it was acquired by DDB. They stepped away five years after that, and returned with New Commercial Arts in 2020. Last year, it was acquired by WPP. By now, it’s practically a business model.

So yes, for some the old loop still works — rebellion, disruption, acquisition. But that cycle is starting to show its age. Maybe that’s the real innovation holding companies should be chasing — not the latest trend but a faster, clearer way to push entrepreneurial talent out the door. 

(To be clear: that’s a joke. A cynical one, though not exactly off-base.)

Because here’s the reality: holding companies aren’t evolving to retain talent — they’re increasingly places people outgrow. The real innovation might be figuring out why the very people who build the future keep deciding it’s not worth staying for.