Reprise, the performance marketing agency of IPG Mediabrands, promoted Dimitri Maex to global CEO, effective immediately. Maex was global chief operating officer of the agency and replaces Tim Ringel, who led Reprise from 2016 until his departure earlier this month to become the global chief executive of creative agency Spring Studios.
Maex reports to IPG Mediabrands Global CEO Daryl Lee and assumes the responsibility of overseeing Reprise, which provides capabilities in digital, search, social, mobile and e-commerce to sister agencies UM and Initiative—integrating digital marketing services into bespoke solutions for those agencies' clients. Maex tells Ad Age his role will be "really about establishing Reprise as a leader in performance marketing."
He will be responsible for further integrating social media marketing shop Society and mobile marketing agency Ansible into the agency after they were repositioned under the Reprise banner last year. Maex says areas in which the agency can grow include e-commerce, data and analytics and SEO, so he will be focused on further building out those capabilities.
Maex only joined Reprise in June, as global chief operating officer. Before that, he was the president and chief revenue officer of UK mobile startup Sentiance, where he helped open and manage the company's first U.S. office. He had spent the majority of his earlier career at OgilvyOne, the defunct customer engagement specialist of the larger WPP creative network, from 1998 to 2016. At OgilvyOne, Maex oversaw the consulting and analytics divisions and worked with clients such as IBM, American Express and Unilever.
Maex says having not "grown up in media," he sees the opportunity to "bring some of the strategic thinking from other industries into media." He says he aims to position Reprise as "a new media agency" that starts with the customers, helping move them from "discovery to exploration," versus the channels—where advertisers typically begin their planning strategies.
"Dimitri's breadth of experience makes him uniquely understand the future evolution of performance marketing as it powers an increasing share of client spend," Lee said in a statement.
Maex's appointment follows a string of recent leadership shifts under Lee, who became global CEO of IPG Mediabrands this month and succeeded Philippe Krakowsky, who is now chief operating officer of the holding company. Eileen Kiernan replaced Lee in his former role as global chief executive of UM while Guy Beach was named global chief financial officer.
