Initiative CEO Stacy DeRiso talks AI, impending Omnicom merger

As the Omnicom-IPG merger nears, Stacy DeRiso, the new global brand president of IPG agency Initiative, is opening up about how AI will transform business in the next year.

The merger is expected to close in November, less than a year after Omnicom announced the plan.

Together, the two holding companies could form the world’s largest agency holdco, with an average of $3.3 billion each in 2025 quarterly revenue. In 2024, the two companies clocked a combined revenue of $26.4 billion.

AI is a major factor in the proposed consolidation, as the behemoths race to future proof their businesses. DeRiso spoke with Editor-in-Chief Stephanie Paterik about leading from inside the AI revolution, her leadership style and how her team is preparing for change.

You have taken on a major role as global brand president at Initiative at a really pivotal time. I want to quote The Media Leader, which called your new role “a career-defining challenge.” No pressure.

Right, no pressure.

You’re preparing for the Omnicom acquisition. AI is rapidly transforming our industry. What makes you want to take on this role? What gets you excited about it at this moment?

A number of things. First of all, those are both exciting things. So yes, it is career defining, surely.

The way I’m thinking and talking about it is this is the biggest thing to happen in our industry, not only in my career, but arguably in our lifetimes. And I’d rather be on the inside of that.

We’re going to learn a ton. We’re going to drive change, which will be significant for the world of advertising and media as we know it. So it’s a privilege to be a part of it.

When you think about those two things, the acquisition on one side and the technological transformation on the other, what is the No. 1 thing you’re focused on to set your team up for success?

At the heart of the acquisition is some of the technological change that the power of the two holding companies are bringing together. That integration of those capabilities certainly empowers and enables us as employees of a new model, a new holdco. The way we’re setting people up is a few ways.

We’re really surrounding and supporting our current clients and identifying what we can unlock with them as this moves forward.

I’ve asked each client team to do an audit of how we’re using AI and unleashing that. [Both] with the old ways of working our current capabilities internally as well as with partners.

If you and I were to sit down here a year from now, what do you think we’d be talking about that we aren’t quite yet.

I think we’ll be talking about AI a little bit differently than we are today. Right now, we’re talking about it because we feel like we have to, and because there’s so much to learn from it. The pace of change is faster than it’s ever been. It will probably never be this slow again.

How are you navigating that balance between the need for a short-term result and long-term brand-building?

A few things. One, our product at Initiative, Fame and Flow. We have an ability to diagnose the best or most powerful way to reach a client or a brand’s KPI. Whatever their metric is, our tool allows us to diagnose the best way to deliver on that.

So it’s an analytical approach. It’s kind of a new model for doing so. We engage in conversations around that and demonstrate the impact that some of our levers on the Fame side have on the levers on the Flow side. So really the impact that some of the Fame building things have on the Flow building things.