Dentsu agency Merkle has appointed Periscopix veteran Niyi Duro-Emanuel to the newly-created role of practice lead for the UK strategy team.
Duro-Emanuel is responsible for leading Merkle’s team of 40 strategists in the UK, providing strategic consultancy to clients across Merkle’s customer experience management and transformation offering.
The role was created to fill the need of clients needing more strategic advice (focusing on long-term business outcomes) as they adopt new technologies to enable customer experience transformation.
Duro-Emanuel joined Merkle via the Periscopix acquisition in 2015, now known as Merkle’s performance media practice area, and has been part of the business for over 11 years. He joined Periscopix in the paid search team, helping to scale the practice to one of the largest in the UK.
Prior to joining the Solutions team 18 months ago, he led the client services team across Merkle’s Media and CX practice areas and is also credited with spearheading the development of Merkle’s approach across large integrated clients within media and analytics.
Duro-Emanuel said: “The team and I are focussed on developing an outcomes first proposition for clients, to transform their customer experience capabilities through adopting technology to truly achieve their desired business outcomes.
“I’m thrilled to be leading such a talented team and helping our clients deliver a total customer experience across every interaction they have with their brand.”
The UK strategy team was previously led by Richard Lees in a dual role which also spanned the EMEA region until he was appointed chief strategy officer for Merkle and Dentsu’s customer experience management Service Line across EMEA in December 2020.
The creation of Duro-Emanuel’s UK role is meant allow Lees to focus on an EMEA set of operating methods and deliver on Merkle’s customer experience management expertise across the region.
Anne Stagg, CEO for CXM at Dentsu UK & Ireland and UK CEO at Merkle, added: “This is an incredibly exciting appointment for the UK business. Niyi’s experience in client leadership and in his most recent role, providing strategic consultancy to help clients navigate their customer experience transformation journeys makes him the perfect candidate to lead our first class team of strategists.“
