Jill Kelly on the evolution of media and her vision for Assembly
Plus: Droga’s exit from Accenture Song, GroupM's 'WPP Media' rebrand, and Johnny Hornby’s expanded role at WPP
Agency Business is brought to you by Brian Wieser’s Madison and Wall, in collaboration with Olivia Morley's FusionFront Media. We publish new podcast episodes every Monday at 6 a.m. Eastern.
Hello and welcome to Agency Business for the week of June 2, 2025. Episode 24 is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
Inside this week’s episode
Jill Kelly, North America CEO of Assembly, joins us this week to talk about her first few months in the role—and how she’s thinking about pricing models, platform strategy, and talent as media services become more complex and technology-enabled.
Jill shares her career journey from media buyer to corporate communications lead to executive roles across IPG, Publicis, WPP, and now Stagwell. She reflects on what’s changed in the media landscape, why brand and performance media are increasingly indistinguishable, and how mid-size clients are opening the door for more agile and outcome-based compensation structures.
We also discuss Assembly’s proprietary Stage platform, what Jill sees as the future of media agency pricing models, and how automation and AI can free up teams to focus on higher-value work. Jill emphasizes that Stagwell’s independent, brand-led structure creates a unique talent environment—and why she believes Assembly is "big enough to matter, small enough to care."
News of the week: Discussed in Episode 24
David Droga steps down from Accenture Song
MW: David Droga is certainly considered to be a legend in the advertising industry, and so his stepping aside is notable for that reason alone. At the same time, what I thought was interesting about this news was how Accenture replaced someone deeply connected to the traditional agency world with someone more historically connected to the rest of Accenture. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but given that Accenture Song doesn’t compete very much for budgets that would otherwise go to agencies, maybe it’s a reflection of the need to double down on what they have been doing all along rather than trying to add more agency services.
FFM: It's the end of an era. Droga is one of those names that’s universally recognized across the advertising industry. We wrote last week about leadership change at GALE and what’s at risk when founders step down from their mature businesses. It will be interesting to see where Accenture Song goes from here, especially with a new leader coming in from the consultancy side.
Johnny Hornby’s expanded remit at WPP
MW: Johnny Hornby is also very well regarded in the industry, not least for founding a very successful independent agency group. If they have to operate in corporate environments, I typically think of entrepreneurs as individuals who want to actually run companies or otherwise operate meaningful divisions with some independence. Otherwise, if they have been financially successful they usually have the choice to invest their capital elsewhere or wait to find the right situation where they can determine the future of a given business as its CEO if not its Chairman. I don’t pretend to know Hornby’s motivations or WPP’s goals for him, but it’s hard to ignore this news in context of a new chairman of the board of WPP and weak results for WPP overall in recent periods.
FFM: What stood out to me was that Hornby has experience running multiple agencies under a single P&L, not just as a portfolio. That could be an indicator of what WPP is aiming for here—especially amidst its media division’s rebrand—a push toward consolidation and simplification across its long tail of shops.
WPP Media officially replaces the GroupM brand
MW: On the one hand, I didn’t think the renaming was significant—and it had certainly been widely telegraphed before—but even if this doesn’t do anything to actually bring the media function closer to the other parts of WPP, the ongoing centralization efforts are clearly positive for a media services business of WPP Media’s scale.
FFM: This was so overdue. When I reported on the formation of EssenceMediacom and its supporting tech layer, I remember needing a flowchart graphic to help readers make sense of the structure. Clients don’t want complexity—they want to know what they’re buying. WPP Media seems to be following the same path as Publicis Media in making things more navigable.
Up next on Agency Business:
Next week’s guest is David Gaines, CEO and founder of Media by Mother. Watch for the episode next Monday at 6 a.m. Eastern.
As always, Agency Business is not pay-to-play. We welcome guest pitches, especially from women and leaders of color in the industry. Send us a note if you’d like to come on the show or learn about sponsorship opportunities.