Angela Tangas: Why Brands Are Bringing More In-House

Four months in as OLIVER’s global CEO, Angela Tangas is sure of two things: Brands are upping their in-house capability “because having that control is fundamental,” and in-house agencies and external agencies are not similar.

“The overall talk track out in the industry is the agency model is not all that dissimilar from an inside model. But I have to say, fundamentally, I cannot agree with that,” she tells LBB during a trip home to Australia, during which she spent time with the local OLIVER team designing, building, and running in-house solutions for brands.

She calls it an ‘inside’ solution versus an in-house solution, because “we really are the and transformation catalyst from inside.” She has felt refreshed by the level of “trust and interoperability” between OLIVER and the brands it works with, which include Unilever, Microsoft, Diageo, L’Oréal, and The Guardian. “We are absolutely ingrained and immersed within their organisation and we really are their critical friend.”

“We have such intimate understanding and knowledge of the inner workings of their organisation. We essentially have unfettered access, because we are a member of the team and that proximity is a privilege and comes with responsibility - our success is ultimately tied to the success of our customer and that's about outcomes in support of their growth, performance and competitiveness.

"We can see around the corners: What's going to be a problem or a blocker, and how could we play a role to get through some of those barriers, silos, challenges, or complexities to help them get to great faster?

“The next 12 months in particular are going to be one of the most challenging, but equally could be the most rewarding, for companies of what we've seen in a lifetime, or at least a generation. Clearly, that's a fantastic platform to come in and help drive the next horizon of growth from.”

She grew up in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, and started her career client-side across insurer AIG, marketing and tech company Sensis, and comparison service iSelect. She hadn’t worked in advertising until 2018, when she was approached to become chief commercial officer at Dentsu AUNZ. “I didn't know who that company was at the time,” she recalls, “and in the end, I decided to say yes.”

Close to two years after she started, the CEO who hired her had left, and his replacement came and went. Angela was tapped for the top job and tasked with transforming the business. It wasn’t an easy ride. She ran AUNZ for three years, before relocating to London to become CEO across the UK and Irish operations.

“I was probably the right person at the wrong time,” she reflects of the job in Australia.

“I'm not saying that in terms of the company itself, I'm saying that in the context of the industry's readiness for proper transformation. Everything that we're doing now was an outcome that I had already done three times, four times over client-side. That was the opportunity, to come in and do [that] in that organisation in Australia and New Zealand, first and foremost.

“And we did a very good job of that. We took that business from a loss-making business to a highly profitable business over three years, and fundamentally rewired how it needed to operate, so it was far less reliant on traditional media models and much more focused on how you create new value for customer through a creative, data, and customer experience context, of which media of course then becomes the amplifier.”

She loves advertising. And the most significant commonality between her agency and client-side roles is the most important: “You care deeply about your customer.”

“It's just a change in the customer profile,” she explains. “My mission is all about how do I create as much value for my customer as possible. And I've had a lot of fun over the last eight years trying to do just that.”

Her customer at OLIVER – a brand looking for an in-house agency solution – is “100%” her top priority. “They probably need more help than ever before. And I say that with absolute sincerity. It hasn't been easy the last 12 months, and it's certainly not going to be easy in the next 12 months. And with that, the priority then becomes to help my customer.

“I need to make sure I have the best gen AI or AI culture within my organisation. That we've got the right shapes of expertise and capability in the moments that are needed most for our customer.”

If OLIVER can achieve that, it can help clients “get to where they need to be as quickly as possible”, and beat the competition. “Those that embrace and embed AI through their organisations most effectively will be the ones that come out the category winners in the next 12, 18 months.”

Brandtech Group, OLIVER’s parent company, promises its client list -- including eight of the world’s top 10 brands -- world-class generative AI capabilities. Angela holds a joint role, serving both as OLIVER’s global CEO and Brandtech’s CSO. Angela says Brandtech has shown “what is possible” with AI through the likes of Pencil, a gen AI creation platform founded by a team from Google, Facebook, and Uber, and acquired by Brandtech in 2023.

Last year, Brandtech and Unilever teamed up to build and scale AI infrastructure for the brand, Google integrated Veo 2 into the Pencil platform, and Boston Consulting Group entered a partnership with Pencil to help businesses with gen AI “adoption at scale”, beyond pilot programs.

Angela notes the “pilot purgatory” observed in 2025 involved “lots of organisations starting out with testing the use of AI, [but] very few of them moving ahead at the speed necessary to get the benefits.”

She argues the key is clarity on the tech’s strategic purpose, reviewing workflows and process, and considering the broader organisation’s context to achieve “value realisation sooner rather than later,” since “every company in some way, shape or form is facing some form of either cost avoidance or cost reduction activity.”

Brands know their operating models need to be dynamic in order to flex as AI evolves. That’s why an in-house approach “becomes of increasing value,” as does OLIVER’s partnership, Angela says.

“You can't build for where AI is. You have to be planning for where we think it could go.

“And of course, no one has a crystal ball, but that comes back to making sure your operating model has enough dynamism built into it. An inside model very much helps you with that flex.”