Selective. Considered. Free.

Michael spent two decades inside the agencies that set the standard — adam&eveDDB, cummins&partners, Engine/WCRS — making work for Volkswagen, John Lewis, BMW, Deutsche Telekom and the Royal Navy. The work won where it matters: IPA Effectiveness, D&AD, Cannes Lions, British Arrows. After enough years inside those structures, the question wasn't whether the model was working — it was who it was working for. free.studio is the answer to that question. A partnership built around the senior practitioners who make the best work, with the overheads, hierarchies and politics stripped out. It's not a complaint about the old model. It's just the better one.

"free.studio strips away everything that doesn't matter — the overheads, the politics, the rigid hierarchies — and focuses purely on what does: brilliant people solving interesting problems."

SpecialtiesBrand strategy. Creative leadership. Effectiveness. Business transformation.

Clients includeadam&eveDDB, cummins&partners, Engine/WCRS, Volkswagen, John Lewis, Deutsche Telekom, BMW, Royal Navy.

Steven is the operational anchor of free.studio London. Most recently Commercial Director at Gen Plus Group UK/EU, and before that Business & Sustainability Director at adam&eveDDB — a fifteen-year career inside London's most demanding agency floors, working across Volkswagen, Coca-Cola and Jack Daniel's. The thread is the same regardless of brand: high standards, deep client trust, and the discipline to turn a creative ambition into a delivered piece of work without losing what made it ambitious in the first place. Studio Director is the role at free.studio London that holds the operational craft together while the creative work flies — and Steven is the person it was built for.

"The best work happens when the operational thinking and the creative thinking respect each other."

SpecialtiesOperations. Client partnership. Sustainability strategy. Integrated delivery.

Clients includeadam&eveDDB, Gen Plus Group, Volkswagen, Coca-Cola, Jack Daniel's.

Sophie spent fifteen years on London's most demanding strategy floors — M&C Saatchi, BBH — leading the thinking for Boots, Sainsbury's, Starbucks, American Express, Heinz and other businesses where strategy isn't a deck but a P&L. The work spans the rare ground between brand positioning and commercial outcome, written in language that makes both client and creative team want to make the work. She's known for a particular gift: making the strategic argument so clearly that the creative leap feels obvious in hindsight. That's the highest compliment in the craft.

"Strategy that earns its keep is strategy that makes the next decision easier, not harder."

SpecialtiesBrand strategy. Communications strategy. Commercial planning. Brand positioning.

Clients includeBoots, Sainsbury's, Starbucks, American Express, Heinz, Tesco.

Christopher's career spans two decades on London's most demanding creative floors — WCRS, VCCP, Sky, Saatchi & Saatchi — where craft isn't an aesthetic choice, it's the difference between work that lands and work that doesn't. The clients tell you the level of standard he's used to operating at: Women's Aid, the RAF, the BBC. Public-interest briefs where the message has to be earned, not bought, and the audience knows the difference. He's the rare CD whose eye runs all the way through the work, from the strategic argument to the final frame, with the discipline that comes from years of seeing what happens when craft slips.

"Craft is the part of the work the audience can't articulate, but always feels."

SpecialtiesCreative direction. Production craft. Brand campaigns. Public-interest communications.

Clients includeWomen's Aid, RAF, BBC, WCRS, VCCP, Sky, Saatchi & Saatchi.

Geraldine has been the client. Global Managing Director of Range Rover during one of the most ambitious chapters in the brand's modern history. Global Head of Automotive at Meta, where she shaped how the world's biggest automotive brands met the world's biggest digital platform. Marketing Director at Volkswagen UK before that. The career is rare in advertising: someone who has held both the brand and the budget, set the brief and approved the work, lived the consequence of every commercial decision. What she brings to free.studio is the perspective most agencies are too embarrassed to admit they don't have — what it actually looks like from the client side, where the work has to land.

"The best work earns the room. The room knows when it's been earned."

SpecialtiesBrand leadership. Commercial strategy. Client-side advisory. Automotive and digital.

Clients includeRange Rover, Meta, Volkswagen UK, Jaguar Land Rover.

Dino's career sits at the rare ground where technology and storytelling actually have to work together rather than just be talked about together. BAFTA-winning inventor of the Rubik's Connected Cube — the toy that married thirty-year-old physical play with modern connected-product thinking. Senior roles at Sky Innovation Lab and Walt Disney Europe, where the brief was always the same: take a real technical capability and turn it into a story or experience that means something to the people who use it. He's one of the rare practitioners who understands the technology as deeply as the storytelling — and that combination is what most "innovation" briefs actually need but rarely get.

"AI is just another tool. The question is whether the human in the room had a great idea before the tool got involved."

SpecialtiesInnovation. Emerging technology. Creative direction. Connected products. AI.

Clients includeSky, Walt Disney Europe, Rubik's, BAFTA-recognised work.

Steve and writing partner Matt Woolner created "Always a Woman" while freelancing — a campaign that became one of the most-watched John Lewis ads of all time. He joined adam&eveDDB in 2013 as Creative Director, spending a decade leading Volkswagen UK, Great Western Railway, McCain and HMRC, winning awards and pitches along the way. He now brings a decade of adam&eveDDB craft discipline to the best briefs in London.

"I still get a buzz from a big idea that works across all channels. The day that stops is the day I retire."

SpecialtiesConceptual advertising. Film. Integrated campaigns. Craft copywriting.

Clients includeJohn Lewis, Volkswagen, GWR, McCain, HMRC, Bulmers, The AA, Persil

Matt's career is defined by work that earns real love, not just industry awards. Nearly a decade at adam&eveDDB alongside writing partner Steve Wioland, contributing to campaigns that have become part of British advertising folklore. He now freelances as senior creative and CD, making work that proves advertising can be genuinely meaningful — and turning down the kind that can't.

"Good advertising is just good writing. Everything else follows."

SpecialtiesConceptual advertising. Copywriting. Creative direction. Integrated campaigns.

Clients includeJohn Lewis, Volkswagen, Great Western Railway, McCain, HMRC

Under Pat's creative leadership, McCann Melbourne was ranked the world's number-one agency by the Gunn Report in 2013 — a year when the agency took on the world and won. His work has been recognised by TED, the London Design Museum, and the wider awards circuit, including Cannes Lions and D&AD. The thread is consistent: brand work that goes beyond beautiful and earns a place in the actual culture of the people it speaks to. Pat's the rare CD who can hold the craft and the commercial in the same hand — and refuses to let either compromise the other.

"The best creative work isn't just beautiful. It moves the needle and moves people."

SpecialtiesBrand campaigns. Creative leadership. Integrated production. Awards craft.

Clients includeMcCann Melbourne, Gunn Report, TED, London Design Museum.

Ben's CV is a tour of the senior creative roles most people aspire to and never quite reach: Chief Creative Officer at DDB Australia, Asia Creative Chairman at M&C Saatchi. The work has earned Cannes Lions, D&AD, and Effies — the harder commercial measure that tells you the work didn't just look good, it sold something. Across his career he's helped generate $30m+ in new business wins. What he brings to free.studio is the rare combination: the creative chairman's instinct for the big idea, the new-business strategist's instinct for what closes a room, and the discipline to make both work in the same brief.

"Cast for task, no baggage, best person in the room every time. It's how clients get the A-team without the overhead."

SpecialtiesBrand platforms. Creative leadership. Big-pitch storytelling. Integrated comms.

Clients includeDDB Australia, M&C Saatchi, McDonald's, Netflix, Virgin Australia.

Magnus brings something rare to senior marketing strategy: genuine multi-market fluency. Swedish-Australian, native in two languages and senior-fluent in three markets — Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Asia. The work has been across premium lifestyle brands — Samsonite, TUMI and others — where positioning has to land in cultures that don't share a vocabulary, let alone a shopping habit. He helps brands sharpen their story and sell through, without losing the soul that made the brand worth selling in the first place. Strategy that ships, not strategy that decks.

"I like useful strategy. free.studio is full of people who ship."

SpecialtiesPositioning. Go-to-market strategy. Channel strategy. International expansion.

Clients includeSamsonite, TUMI.

Lucy orchestrated global media coverage for the world's first mushroom-growing experiment in orbit, via SpaceX's Fram2 mission — which is the kind of sentence that tells you everything you need to know about how she works. Beyond the headline, thirteen years across the AFL, BMW, PepsiCo and the Victorian Department of Health have given her a particular calibration: she knows what a real story is, how to tell it so press actually pick it up, and how to keep the brand standing when the story turns harder than expected. Crisis comms, global campaigns, the daily work of media relations — same instincts, different stakes.

"Great work comes from clear intent and brilliant execution. Our job is to connect the two."

SpecialtiesPR strategy. Media relations. Crisis communications. Global campaigns.

Clients includeAFL, BMW, PepsiCo, Victorian Department of Health, SpaceX.

Anthony writes, publishes and consults on the progressive working practices most companies talk about and few actually live. His career bridges the commercial and the meaningful — co-founding the mindfulness platform Sit Down And, leading growth at The Skin Deep (the studio behind some of the most-watched relationship and human-experience films on the internet), and sitting on the advisory board of SAARI Collective. As an author and business writer he's spent years thinking about the structural questions free.studio was built to answer: how teams should be organised, how creative work should be valued, how the day-to-day of working life can be designed to actually work. The work he produces and the words he writes share a quality: a sense that someone in the room actually cared.

"Free-folk means you get specialists who care about outcomes, not just outputs. That's my happy place."

SpecialtiesPublishing. Business writing. Progressive working practices. Brand partnerships. Creative production.

Clients includeSit Down And, The Skin Deep, SAARI Collective.

Lily works at the intersection of brand strategy, content and culture — the rare ground where the strategic argument and the creative idea actually have to live together rather than just be aligned in a deck. Her practice spans social and content briefs across Australian brands, with a particular instinct for making brands feel like they belong somewhere real, not just somewhere visible. Strategy that earns its keep, made by someone who understands both why an idea works and how it gets made.

"Strategy should feel like common sense in hindsight. The hard part is getting there first."

SpecialtiesBrand strategy. Creative development. Content. Culture.

Clients includeAvailable on request.

Carly began in broadcast journalism at the ABC before moving into branded content and native advertising — building a reputation for editorial that genuinely moves people. At Yahoo RYOT Studio she created content for national advertisers across travel, food and lifestyle, and her work has reached audiences in the tens of millions. She's worked with NBC Universal, Napoleon Perdis, Smiling Mind and Channel Seven, and brings a journalist's discipline of truth and economy to every brief. The thread through it all is the same conviction: the best branded content reads like editorial because it earns the right to.

"The best branded content doesn't feel like advertising. It feels like something worth reading."

SpecialtiesEditorial strategy. Content. Native advertising. Broadcast. Social storytelling.

Clients includeYahoo RYOT, ABC, NBC Universal, Channel Seven, Smiling Mind, Napoleon Perdis.

Carly brings the energy and precision of a digital-native creative to everything she makes. Three years building Netflix ANZ's social voice — balancing platform-native creativity with genuine brand identity. She's also led creative across Meta, Nike and Red Bull at Snack Drawer, developed documentary scripts, directed video, and produced the AIMCO-award winning TransAthletica campaign — purpose-led work that earned cultural impact far beyond its spend. The kind of creative who treats a 15-second social cut with the same seriousness as a long-form film, and gets results in both.

"Good design doesn't shout. It invites."

SpecialtiesSocial creative. Digital design. Video production. Brand content.

Clients includeNetflix ANZ, Meta, Nike, Red Bull, NBC Universal, Smiling Mind.

Sean consults across government, health, education and the private sector, with a core focus on building psychologically safe and genuinely inclusive workplaces. He holds an MBA from RMIT and credentials in global leadership, truth-telling and anti-racism, and is a senior facilitator at Thinka. He's Deputy Chair of Switchboard Victoria. The work spans organisational change, culture redesign and the day-to-day craft of helping leaders run rooms that more than a few people actually want to be in. One of those rare practitioners who makes leadership development feel less like a workshop and more like a conversation worth having.

"You don't build great culture by accident. You build it with intention, honesty and a willingness to be uncomfortable."

SpecialtiesLeadership development. Culture. Inclusion. Organisational change.

Clients includeGovernment, health, education and private sector clients across Australia, UK and North America.

Zoë has spent two decades in publishing and editorial — developing a voice and an eye that serves fast-turnaround editorial and long-form content equally well. Nearly twelve years as Music Editor at Stack Magazine gave her an instinct for cultural currency; her work as Copy Editor at Sneaker Freaker International keeps her at the intersection of street culture, design and brand. She's the editor who makes everyone else's writing better — quietly, precisely, and without the performative red ink.

"Great copy is invisible. You read it and you just believe it."

SpecialtiesCopy editing. Journalism. Editorial strategy. Music and culture. Brand content.

Clients includeSneaker Freaker, Stack Magazine, freelance editorial.

Dave's the kind of CD whose career résumé reads like a tour of the most ambitious creative shops on three continents. Twenty years across Sydney, New York and now London. The work spans integrated campaigns for Google, HSBC, Sky, MINI, BMW, Adidas, the FT, Abbey Road Studios and Tango — but what holds it together is the conviction that the idea is the north star, and everything else (the medium, the budget, the deadline) is just argument about how to serve it. He co-founded the Glue Society, built Synthetique to apply concept-led thinking to AI, and is currently writing and executive-producing the high-concept feature Reverse with director Sean Ellis.

"A great idea is still a great idea — whatever tool you used to find it."

SpecialtiesCreative direction. Concept development. Integrated campaigns. Copywriting. Screenwriting. AI.

Clients includeGoogle, HSBC, Sky, MINI, BMW, Financial Times, Abbey Road Studios, Adidas, Tango.