Tom Maynard runs Amplify, a 130-person self-funded company across Asia-Pacific that manages hundreds of creators and executes influencer campaigns for brands like Nestlé, Unilever, and Estée Lauder in over 20 markets. Founded in 2019, this Sydney-based firm operates as a talent management agency, influencer marketing company, and content production house rolled into one, with offices spanning Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and the United States.

“We’re looking to build the world’s leading and largest creator business. It may take us 10 years, but that’s the overall mission of the business,” Tom states. 

Amplify emerged from Tom’s observation that brands struggled to work with creators across fragmented platforms while creators needed commercial guidance beyond just content creation. Rather than building another technology platform, Tom chose to focus on deep cultural expertise and what he calls “white-glove service,” believing that understanding Internet culture and local market nuances would prove more valuable than software solutions.

Tom has been a part of the creator economy before the term existed, having managed digital content for major TV formats including “Big Brother,” “X Factor,” and “MasterChef.” The pivotal realization came after his stint at FremantleMedia in the U.S. around 2011-2012, when he returned to Australia and began bringing YouTubers like Troye Sivan and Tyler Oakley for live tours. 

“The creators’ ability to motivate an audience to take action was really the light bulb moment,” he says. “Whether it was selling a ticket to a show or selling a T-shirt, these guys actually had true fandom, and they could motivate an audience to take action.” 

This insight about creator influence directly informed his decision to start Amplify with business partner Alex Reid.

Three Integrated Pillars

Amplify’s business model operates across three interconnected verticals. Talent management forms the foundation, with Amplify representing hundreds of creators across Asia. “We help build their career, help find them opportunities, whether that’s how they build a podcast, how they create a cooking book, how they launch a product line,” Tom explains, emphasizing guidance beyond just content creation.

The second pillar, creator marketing, is where Amplify competes with well-funded technology platforms. “We decided very intentionally from 2020 to focus on providing brands with meticulous services at a relatively large scale,” he notes.

Content production, the third vertical, spans everything from social media content to large-scale reality TV shows on TikTok. The company has produced music reality shows sponsored by Samsung and e-sports reality shows across Indonesia and the Philippines with TikTok. Tom also highlights their “always on” content — helping brands build online audiences through community management and TikTok Shop initiatives.

The Asia Advantage

Amplify’s geographic focus reveals a strategy most Western companies have overlooked. “Two-thirds of the world’s population live within a 2,000-kilometer (1,242 miles) radius of Bangkok,” Tom points out. Beyond numbers, he sees structural advantages in Asian markets absent from Western economies.

“There’s just a lot of complexity, which is fun but also freedom out there and no rigid, structural incumbent ways of working,” he explains. While traditional media agencies maintain U.S. strongholds, Asia offers “blue ocean” opportunities with fewer entrenched gatekeepers and a growing middle class “prepared to pay for things, whether that’s a shampoo or whether it’s content.”

The complexity deters competitors but becomes Amplify’s moat. As Tom notes, Indonesia alone has hundreds of languages; Thai creators expect 100% upfront payment; communication in Thailand runs through Line, not WhatsApp. “It’s hard for our competitors in North America and Europe to come into Asia,” Tom claims. “You have to know what you’re doing and have good people on the ground.”

Beyond Vanity Metrics

Instead of fixating on surface metrics like follower counts and views, Amplify takes a different approach, examining deeper indicators.

“Growth rate is super interesting,” he explains. “Especially the patterns around that — has a follower account just jumped because of one viral video, or do they have consistency around those views?” 

The company prioritizes what Tom calls “community and fandom” — whether creators have audiences that take action. “Can they move a thousand followers to listen to their podcast? Can they move people to purchase their products?”

Amplify is developing AI-powered technology to analyze not just what performs, but why. “What does it actually mean when you have high saves?” Tom asks about TikTok’s save feature. “What does that say about you as a creator or publisher?” The goal is insights that go “one level deeper” than standard analytics.

Platform Power and Infrastructure Gaps

When it comes to who holds power in the creator economy, Tom believes it’s the platforms. He cites Meta’s $22 billion earnings, noting their market cap exceeds the entire French stock exchange.

According to him, platform dominance creates cascading challenges. “Meta, TikTok, YouTube — they don’t talk to each other,” Tom explains. “They have their own platforms that measure campaign success. But how do you bring those together?” He counts over 20 campaign management platforms, creating a “sheer amount of fragmentation.”

Payment infrastructure represents another weakness, in his opinion. “There have been lots of scenarios with platforms or agencies not paying creators when they say they’re going to be paid,” he notes. Pressure flows from brands demanding extended payment terms through agencies to creators. “What’s that saying? Rolls downhill,” Tom observes. “It starts at the top, but it filters down.”

The Consolidation Vision

Tom’s ultimate vision extends beyond running a multi-service agency. “We wouldn’t call ourselves just an agency or a content business. The big vision for us is actually to create a holdco.”

The model references WPP’s advertising industry consolidation, reimagined for creators. “We are looking to do what WPP did 20, 30 years ago; building these agencies and centers of excellence to feed opportunities to each other. We want to build that, but in this new world of the creator economy.”

This strategy encompasses multiple acquisitions and expansions. “Whether that’s finding new talent businesses to acquire around the world, influencer agencies, a payment platform to pay creators, or the ability to help our creators monetize content,” Tom outlines. The goal is deep expertise across every creator economy subset.

The company’s U.S. expansion with about a dozen employees represents the next phase. “We’re looking at a few acquisitions in the next six months to accelerate our U.S. rollout,” Tom reveals.

Building Through Pain

Tom’s advice to entrepreneurs is blunt: “You have to go through pain. If you’re starting out yourself, it takes time and requires improving things every day, every week by 1%. When all those improvements manifest, they do create a flywheel effect.”

As for lessons he wishes he’d learned earlier, Tom says, “a problem shared is a problem halved.” It’s recognition that building in the creator economy requires collaboration rather than solving every challenge alone.

For creators, Tom sees opportunities at every level. “There’s a huge middle-class creator out there,” he observes. “If you’ve got 1,000 people willing to pay you $10 a month, that’s a decent start to make a career out of.” He emphasizes creators needn’t depend solely on brand partnerships: “You don’t need the Holy Grail. You can commercialize your own audience.”

Brands must shift their approach entirely, according to Tom. “Things aren’t necessarily working in this campaign mindset anymore,” he argues. Instead of periodic activations, brands need an “always on” mentality. “You have to be living and breathing that mindset as a brand and understanding the community, understanding Internet culture, understanding what your audience wants online.”

Tom also predicts a change with traditional media companies acquiring creator businesses and platforms, generating unprecedented revenues. “Where eyeballs go, money flows,” he says. The question for him isn’t whether the creator economy will continue growing, but who will own its infrastructure.

For Tom and Amplify, the path is clear. “We like this market and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon,” he states.

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