Stagwell transforms Assembly into global agency Stagwell Media
Stagwell has launched a global media agency born out of Assembly.
The new entity, Stagwell Media, aims to combine Assembly’s “performance heritage and ecosystem expertise” with an integrated model powered by Stagwell’s agentic Machine OS technology.
Stagwell Media will be led by Liz Rutgersson, who was appointed CEO of Assembly last month after previously working as North American CEO of Dentsu agency iProspect.
Rutgersson will also lead the agency’s US remit. Regional CEOs include: Connie Chan as CEO, APAC; Bridget Hopkins as CEO, Europe; Alap Ghosh as CEO, India; Ravi Rao as CEO, MENA, and Kacper Klos as global CEO of digital commerce, Poland.
Stagwell Media will operate in more than 50 markets. Its notable clients include Mastercard, P&G, Lenovo and DP World.
“The traditional media agency model wasn’t built for the future of media. Stagwell Media is,” declared chairman and CEO Mark Penn.
“We saw a gap in the market for a different model and a new way to do media. By combining superior technology, deep media expertise and agility, we help brands to adapt faster, reach audiences more effectively, and unlock growth.”
According to Stagwell’s Q2 2026 earnings report, the challenger holding group’s Media and Commerce division comprises 24% of Stagwell’s total revenue. It posted modest 0.2% year-on-year net organic revenue growth in H1.
The company’s growth was driven instead by its smaller Digital Transformation (+12.0% year-on-year organic net revenue growth) and Communications (+8.8%) businesses.
Nearly four-fifths (79%) of Stagwell’s total revenue is derived from the US market. The UK, for its part, reported 10.7% net organic revenue growth in H1 2026.
In an interview with The Media Leader published last week, Penn explained that he wants to “put our media at the forefront of digital transformation.”
The media division, he argued, has benefited from its focus on performance media. In comparison, competitor holding groups are “making a transformation from big brand and principal media” but still ultimately reliant on selling media at scale to earn their keep.
In contrast, Penn wants Stagwell to be known as the agency a brand comes to for creativity and technology. “Principal media is not why you’re showing up for Stagwell,” he said. “And when you come to us for media, you’re going to come to us because we have the most advanced proposition for the changing world.”
Four defining principles
Stagwell Media has four “principles” that “define [its] approach”. These include:
1. Maintaining an “agile model” built on “a simplified, integrated structure” that is “powered by a new kind of multidisciplinary talent with hands-on senior leaders”.
2. Using The Machine OS to “win on every platform”.
3. Unifying “global capabilities with local expertise” and media with “creativity and innovation”.
4. Creating “commercial models built for ambition”.
The agency will continue partnering with sister companies within Stagwell’s Media & Commerce segment, including UK media agency Goodstuff.
Elaborating on Stagwell Media’s positioning, Hopkins added that European marketers are facing the challenge of “increasing complexity” and that Stagwell Media “has been built to help clients navigate that complexity with greater confidence” by “bringing together the capabilities, technology, and a more agile operating model to turn ambition into performance.”