This week, MettleLab officially launched as Australia’s first dedicated training program built specifically for modern producers working in in-house teams, production houses, and creative agencies.
Co-founders Sara Pethybridge and Izzy Watts saw a fracture in the industry and built a commercial solution to fix it.
Their new venture illustrates the type of leadership in motion that the evolved Mediaweek Next of the Best Awards looks to champion.
The Entrepreneur, People & Culture Leadership, and Change Maker categories are designed to acknowledge these sorts of ventures. And MettleLab embodies operational leadership taking action at the commercial core of the industry.
The end of sink or swim
Despite the critical role producers play in advertising, Australia has never had a dedicated, in-person training pathway.
As the industry evolves, the pressure is mounting. Around 78% of marketers now produce content internally, meaning producers are doing more with less. Throw in regulatory complexity and AI-driven workflows, and the demands on the role have never been higher.
“Building MettleLab was less of a ‘lightbulb moment’ and more of a response to a decade of seeing the same cracks in the industry,” Pethybridge said. “Starting a business from scratch is exhilarating and terrifying, but when you’re solving a problem you’ve lived personally, the conviction doesn’t waver.”
Pethybridge noted the team spent 12 months talking to heavyweights across production houses, agencies, and in-house teams.
“Every conversation pointed to the same truth: producers aren’t trained,” she said. “They learn on the job, through baptism by fire and a sink or swim mentality that the industry has never questioned. Being an entrepreneur in this space means having the stomach to tell the industry that the way we’ve been doing this isn’t sustainable anymore, and then providing the solution.”
MettleLab co-founders, Izzy-Watts and Sara Pethybridge demonstrate the entrepreneurial spirit. Image: supplied
Redefining the entrepreneurial spirit
Moving beyond creative theory, MettleLab delivers the technical rigor required to lead high-stakes content teams.
The business offers a two-day in-person producer masterclass, personalised one-on-one mentorships, and bespoke in-house consultancy.
Watts, a trauma-informed producer and director, noted that true innovation often happens in the operational backbone.
“The ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ in the ad world is often talked about in terms of creative campaigns, but we saw a massive opportunity for innovation in the operational backbone, production,” Watts said. “Stepping out to launch MettleLab was about acknowledging that our industry needs a professional benchmark that simply hasn’t existed until now.”
Watts has built a career on the belief that how the industry makes things matters just as much as what it makes.
“We don’t need to reinvent how production works; we just need to stop pretending that ‘figure it out as you go’ is a professional standard,” Watts added. “MettleLab is about giving producers the formal tools and systems that, frankly, should have been there from the start.”
Setting a new benchmark
The industry is already responding to the shift.
Michael Ciccone, head of production at Truce Production Co., called the masterclass a much-needed initiative to equip emerging producers for a complex landscape.
Applications for the inaugural intake are open now, with the first workshops commencing on 25 and 26 May 2026.
It takes a specific type of leader to look at a broken system and build a business to fix it. MettleLab’s Pethybridge and Watts are doing just that.
Feature image- MettleLab Co-founders Sara Pethybridge and Izzy Watts.