Former VML chief executive Thomas Tearle and ex-McDonalds and Australia Post digital leader Brent Clarke have launched a new consultancy that aims to help ambitious companies transform. B&T caught up with Tearle to find out more about adland’s newest underdog.
Underdog Studio, which opened for business earlier this month, will offer services in eCommerce, subscription models, digital revenue streams, loyalty, CRM, digital products, websites and mobile applications to drive high impact transformation and growth.
The consultancy is pitching for private equity backed clients with ambitious growth targets that might typically be priced out of the reach of global consultancies such as Accenture or Deloitte.
Underdog Studios will operate on an outcomes-based remuneration model rather than billable hours. The business has launched with a few foundation clients, and is actively recruiting for practice leads in design, data and tech.
For Tearle, who is a qualified electronic engineer, Underdog Studio somewhat signals a return to his days leading Isobar, the digital business transformation agency he led for seven years.
During his time at VML, which also offers CX services, Tearle worked on a joint venture with Rip Curl to create an app — think ‘Strava for surfing’—in which VML is paid based on outcomes and the success of the app’s subscriptions.
Tearle told B&T this experience sewed the seed to eventually launch a digital business transformation consultancy that would be paid on outcomes. The pair took steps to bring the business to life after Tearle left VML in January.
“We are trying to carve out something in between the agencies and large consultancies,” said Tearle, who led the 300-person strong VML in Australia and New Zealand for the past five years.
“What we’ll actually deliver beyond growth consulting is data analytics, CRM, loyalty, websites, mobile apps, things like that. It’s the practical use of these things, such as subscription models for instance, to help clients grow their businesses.”
Clarke, who first worked alongside Tearle at WPP 15 years ago, spent nearly a decade at McDonald’s Australia as a core member of both the Australian leadership team and the global technology team, where he launched the MyMaccas loyalty programme.
Most recently, he spearheaded digital channel transformation at Australia Post, playing a key role in a major enterprise-wide transformation.
He said Underdog Studio’s focus is to help businesses cut wastage and will use AI tech where it simplifies the work, but humans where judgement matters.
“The goal was never transformation. It was always growth,” he said. “We use design, data, technology and AI, combined with hands-on experience, to grow our customers’ businesses. Like any good underdog, we aim to achieve more with less. More growth with less cost, time and frustration.”
Working shorter & smarter
Targeting ambitious private equity backed clients—companies outside the pitching merry-go-round—is a deliberate choice. These companies often have aggressive short to medium-term growth targets and liquidity; which suits Underdog’s mantra of working on short cycles rather than multi-year programmes.
“These companies have a definite business reason to want that growth, and a deadline to achieve it. That gives us the opportunity to really make sure that we are deploying our capability towards an outcome the client needs so significantly.”
Although Tearle wouldn’t reveal the name of his clients, he shared insights into their scope of work. One client is an offline business that needs to shift online and Underdog Studios is developing and executing an eCommerce strategy and updating its legacy business model.
“After you look at the gaps in their eCommerce strategy, there’ll be work in data and analytics, a new website and looking at their loyalty programme and CRM to reduce churn and increase their number of customers,” he explained.
The global consulting market reached around $263 billion (A$367 billion) in 2024, yet research conducted by Bain found 88 per cent of transformations fail to achieve their original ambitions.
Additionally, Deloitte’s State of AI report in 2026, found only 12 per cent of Australian leaders feel generative AI is already transforming their business or industry, compared to 25 per cent globally.
The gap between what’s spent, how transformation is managed and outcomes delivered has never been wider, and Australia is falling further behind.
Tearle believes this failure rate is due to projects that set out on three-year roadmaps and stakeholders and targets are constantly shifting, which can lead to scope creep and cost blowouts.
“There’s a lot more money and a lot of time wasted on those projects,” Tearle said. “What we’re going to do differently is genuinely look for adaptation and work with what the clients have already got, and make sure we either use AI to crunch these problems quicker or lighter weight technology. Therefore, we are able to gain quick wins for the client over the short term, rather than dragging it out.
“The amount of technology that never really actually gets used is another problem. An analogy is clients buying the best possible car, but are never shown how to use it or put any fuel into it.”
Underdog Studio is built on the belief that the best transformation is the one that makes the next one unnecessary.”
