After 25 years in media — including a stint as CEO of PhD UK — Ali Reed made the jump from the holding-company world to independent agency Brainlabs. In this candid conversation with Justin Lebbon and Ian Whittaker, she explains why legacy structures, short-term KPIs and "shuffling spreadsheets" pushed her out, and how indies are building AI-native capabilities without decades of technical debt to retrofit.

Highlights:

Why she left the holdco: Personal sacrifice (cancelled holidays, weekly commute from Malta) plus a professional frustration that real influence over the work had been replaced by "managing different parts of the system."
The indie advantage: No legacy infrastructure to retrofit, fewer layers of approval and politics, and the freedom to build AI capabilities cleanly. Brainlabs has partnered with Claude and Notion at enterprise level and published over 700 skills across its ~1,100-person global team in a few months.
Cortex and Cortex Labs: A centralised shared tech platform plus a decentralised mode where account directors and practitioners — not just the dev team — build and ship bespoke client tools in days.
AI as force multiplier, not headcount cut: Brainlabs frames AI as a route to "more for the same," not "more for less." Examples include "Ralph," a growth agent that helps smaller pitches over the line, and "Proteus," a creative variation tool that helped deliver 3x revenue on Meta for one client.
Brand vs. performance: Reed argues brand building isn't dead, but agencies have different "superpowers" — and clients need braver operating models that let an innovation/test-and-learn partner work alongside a stable global agency of record.
The platform threat: With most new media spend flowing to a handful of platforms (much of it direct), Reed says agencies add value through creative quality, first-party signals, early product access and accumulated test-and-learn muscle memory.
Her pitch question: Instead of asking agencies why they're great, she'd ask what they'd regret if they didn't win — a test of honesty over hyperbole.

Key takeaways

Reed left a holdco CEO role partly because real influence over the work had given way to 'shuffling spreadsheets' and managing the system rather than improving client outcomes.
Independent agencies can build AI-native capabilities cleanly, without retrofitting onto decades of technical debt across acquired businesses.
Brainlabs frames AI as a force multiplier for more output, clients and revenue — not a tool for cutting headcount; it wants clients who want 'more for the same,' not 'more for less.'
Decentralised tooling (Cortex Labs) lets practitioners closest to the client problem build and ship bespoke tools in days, on the principle that 'innovation happens at the edge.'
As platforms automate the buying layer, performance is won or lost at the creative and first-party data layers — and on speed to market.
Clients should embrace braver operating models, letting an agile test-and-learn partner incubate ideas that a larger agency then scales, rather than choosing either/or.