Michael Komasinski to succeed Craig Dempster as Merkle Global CEO

Craig Dempster is stepping down as Global CEO of Dentsu’s data-driven customer experience management unit Merkle and will be succeeded by Michael Komasinski. Currently president of Merkle/CXM America and leader of the Dentsu customer experience management service line in the Americas, Komasinki will assume the global CEO role beginning January 1 when Dempster retires. Komasinski will also maintain his current role until his replacement is named sometime next year. Dempster had taken on the global position in April of last year, replacing David Williams, who currently serves as director, Dentsu International. Komasinski said this latest move is a part of a succession plan that has “been aligned and part of the business plan for a long time” between the three executives. Moving forward, one of the challenges for the company, which now has over 14,000 employees globally, is attracting and retaining employees. “I actually think that we've done better on attrition than most of our competitors, but we're all affected by a tight labor market,” Komasinski said, “The demand for top technology-oriented talent is like nothing I've ever seen. We need to hire thousands of people per year at our scale all over the world. We have as much client demand as we can handle. So it's really about, how do we bring in more people faster.” Even though Dempster was in the role for a short amount of time, he was pivotal to making Merkle more commerce and experience-focused, Komasinski said, and he spearheaded the acquisition of LiveArea, a global commerce, an customer experience agency, in July. Komasinski, who will be based in New York, will be focused on continuing to develop the company’s customer experience capabilities, which made up 33% of Dentsu’s overall revenue in the first half of 2021, according to a spokeswoman for the agency. He will also be focused on developing Dentsu as an integrated network. “We have a lot of integration left to do in between the businesses that we've acquired over the last couple of year,” Komasinski said. “We've also started to make a lot of progress on how we cross-sell and go to market as an integrated network. This notion of Dentsu being the most integrated network in the world, I think you'll start to see this really take shape over the next year.” Komasinski has been steadily climbing the ranks of the company for a number of years. He first joined Merkle seven years ago as chief operating officer of agency services, then went on to become president of Merkle’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, which is a position now held by Margaret Wagner. This ends a long run for Dempster at the company who had been with Merkle for 15 years. “I am immensely proud of what we as a brand have achieved over these past 15 years. Merkle’s growth and offering under Dentsu is world class," he said in a statement. "Putting data at the heart of everything we do at Dentsu is transforming our offer and ultimately providing our clients with a seamless and integrated experience to deliver outstanding growth. I celebrate and thank our people in helping to build one of the most innovative businesses in the world.” As part of his new role, Komasinski will join the Dentsu International executive team, reporting to Global CEO of Dentsu International Wendy Clark.

Michael Komasinski to succeed Craig Dempster as Merkle Global CEO

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