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Michael Komasinski has been promoted to global CEO of Dentsu's data performance network Merkle. He replaces Craig Dempster who has been a member of the Merkle executive leadership team for nearly 15 years and joined Dentsu during Merkle’s acquisition in 2016.
Komasinski will take up the global CEO role on 1 January and report to Wendy Clark, Dentsu International's global CEO.
Komasinski is currently president of Merkle in the Americas and leader of the Dentsu customer experience management service line in that region, where he oversees all aspects of the company's regional operations.
He joined the business seven years ago as chief operating officer of Agency Services and went on to become President of Merkle’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa region. He is credited with overseeing a 600% growth in the EMEa business during his four-year tenure.
The new president of Americas has not yet been announced.
Clark said: “Michael’s track record speaks for itself. He inspires and leads teams in developing impactful, data-driven and tech-enabled customer experiences while building lasting and values-based relationships with clients.
"And he shares our collective ambition to become the most integrated agency network, delivering integrated solutions to drive growth for our clients across creative, media and CXM."
Komasinski added: “I am excited for the opportunity to lead such a brilliant and successful brand into its next phase of growth. Bringing together our combined strengths with dentsu makes us truly market leading, demonstrating to our clients the breadth of capability we offer to deliver integrated marketing solutions and business outcomes.
"Talent is the lifeblood of brands like Merkle and it is a key focus in the pandemic era as the labor market tightens and we pivot to hybrid ways of working. As in the past, we are focused on making Merkle and dentsu the employer of choice where the best talent in the industry wants to come develop and thrive.”
Merkle is one of Dentsu’s six core agency brands, alongside Carat, iProspect, Dentsumcgarrybowen, Isobar and 360i. Earlier this year, Merkle acquired LiveArea to bolster Merkle’s global experience and commerce capabilities and double down on its desired positioning as a go-to experience partner for advertisers around the world.
