Free.studio, the Aussie independent creative partnership founded by former adam&eveDDB managing partner and global Cummins&Partners CEO Michael McConville, has set up shop in London this week.
Eight founding members from a range of leading UK creative agencies and adjacent services have joined the partnership that is “a place where ideas go to be set free”.
London is the studio’s first international outpost, following its Australian launch in 2025.
The studio works at a business, product or organisational level, not only on advertising or marketing briefs. It’s built for the moments when a client knows they have a problem or an opportunity, but hasn’t yet worked out how to resolve it or express it.
The London founding partnership is led by McConville, the former Global CEO of cummins&partners who forged a successful career as an agency leader in London before returning to Australia.
Joining McConville are:
- Sophie Lewis, Chief Strategy Officer, previously of M&C Saatchi and BBH
- Geraldine Ingham, former Global Managing Director of Range Rover, Global Head of Automotive at Meta, and Marketing Director of Volkswagen UK
- Dino Burbridge, formerly of Sky Innovation Lab and the BAFTA-winning inventor of the Rubik’s Connected Cube
- Dave Johnson, co-founder of The Glue Society
- Christopher Ringsell, two decades of award-winning work for Women’s Aid, the RAF and the BBC
- Steve Wioland and Matt Woolner, the creative team behind the John Lewis Always a Woman campaign
- Steven Halliday, Director, London, Commercial Director at the Gen Plus Group, and formerly of adam&eveDDB
Free.studio taps into its network of free-folk, assembling projects from the right combination of talent, teamwork and tools. The studio operates as a membership: members chip in to cover the cost of running the business, so those costs don’t get bundled into client fees.
It also frees the studio to bring on disciplines and capabilities that wouldn’t sit comfortably on a traditional agency P&L. No layers or timesheets, clients only pay for talent and outcomes.
“This isn’t an agency, and we didn’t want it to be,” McConville said. “The best creative-and-adjacent people have been choosing for years between making work directly with the clients who need it, and sitting inside the longer process that protects the agency business first.
“We’ve built the thing that puts the trust where it matters – between the talent and the client, with the work binding them. Clients get the right people on the right brief, without the layers in between. Talent gets real work, real problems, real partnership with the people who want the same.”
Sophie Lewis, the chief strategy officer of free.studio, said: “The way free studio is built allows us to approach every client challenge neutrally – with no preconceived ideas about what the answer should be. We help work out the question and can put together exactly the right team to answer it.”
Free.studio is building out the partnership across strategy, technology, entertainment, cause-related, business-creativity – and a broader set of creative-and-adjacent capabilities that often don’t find a home in a traditional agency.
