Why Meet the People's Tim Ringel is betting on collaboration, not consolidation
Plus: Cannes takeaways, Dimitri Maex joins Accenture Song, and a restructure that redefines product leadership
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 23, 2025. Episode 27 is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
Inside this week’s episode
This week, Olivia interviews Tim Ringel, global CEO and founder of Meet the People. With Brian in Cannes, Olivia explores how Tim’s agency group is creating a new model of collaboration across independent agency brands.
Tim traces his path from founding one of Germany’s largest performance agencies, to running IPG’s Reprise, to building Meet the People—a group of 10 fully owned agency brands operating under a shared equity system. He explains how the company incentivizes cross-agency collaboration without stripping individual cultures, and why the model is working for clients frustrated by siloed delivery and mounting holding company overhead.
We also talk about:
Why Meet the People doesn’t acquire overlapping capabilities
How the group supports shared tech and AI development through a centralized data company
The decision to build AI tools in-house rather than acquire them—and how that makes the agency stickier with clients
What’s next for the group in terms of geographic growth and capability gaps (hint: they’re still looking for a profitable, scalable social-first shop).
News of the week: Discussed in Episode 27
Cannes Festival of Creativity takeaways for agencies
MW: The Cannes Lions happened last week, and whether you were there in person or elsewhere, it was impossible to escape news about the event. The AI angle is what everyone was talking and writing about—and it’s important of course—but it seems like if we didn’t bring it up, few were talking about the macroeconomic consequences of current U.S. government policies, new geopolitical uncertainties with the war in Iran, or tactical issues, like whether or not people will be able to move across borders as freely as they used to. All of these issues will be way more impactful than AI in the near term.
FFM: I’m of the opinion that, in the immediate term, AI will lead to more agency jobs—not fewer. What I found interesting in conversation with Tim Ringel is the idea of the agency as a product developer. There are so many overhead costs associated with producing, deploying and maintaining proprietary tech tools that I don’t see mass job losses coming. At least in the near term, I’m waiting to see more hiring of engineers and other nontraditional agency roles to support these investments.
Accenture Song hires Initiative Global CEO, Dimitri Maex
MW: We’ve been watching Accenture’s gradual moves into media carefully over many years, and this hire is fairly significant, especially in light of last month’s relatively large media win of Optus in Australia. It still feels like baby steps rather than something that would allow Accenture to realize its potential sooner versus later.
FFM: Dimitri was very well regarded during his time at Initiative. I interviewed him for the agency’s Adweek Agency of the Year win in 2023, and I remember how much emphasis he placed on structured problem-solving. Under his leadership, the agency leaned into creating client frameworks—an approach that overlaps with how management consultancies operate. That experience seems highly complementary to Accenture’s model. But more than that, he knows how to build and scale a media business—something Accenture hasn’t historically been able to do.
Accenture restructures organization, makes Song CEO a product lead?
MW: As it turned out, Accenture also announced a significant organizational change this past week with CEOs of business units seemingly becoming product leads themselves. In this context, it looks like Song is planning on “going to market” much more as part of an integrated offering than they did before.
FFM: The “Russian doll” nature of these reorganizations is getting harder to keep track of—but what stands out most is the number of people moving from IPG to Accenture. We’ve seen not only Dimitri move, but also his new boss Sean Lyons (formerly R/GA) and several others. It’s no surprise these leadership teams are looking ahead, especially those with a strong track record at Initiative. If Accenture is building a media practice from scratch, it makes sense that they’d start by pulling in proven talent.
Up next on Agency Business:
Next week’s guest is Chris Lowery, CEO of Chase Design Group. 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.