From AI-orchestrated workflows to partnerships with the world’s biggest tech players, Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO of Stagwell, reveals how the company is reshaping the rules of marketing—and what it means for talent, innovation ecosystems, and the rising knowledge economies of the GCC.
In the context of the knowledge economy, how do you see the balance between data-driven decision-making and creative intuition evolving for marketers and brands, considering Stagwell’s role at the intersection of creativity, data, and technology?
Creativity and technology fuel each other in a symbiotic relationship – advances in technology don’t push out creativity, they expand what’s possible. Just look at movies: tech enabled us to go from black and white films to Mission Impossible. In marketing – and the knowledge economy more broadly – this continues to be the case in the AI era. You used to need a crew, drones, and a whole host of equipment to film a campaign of a cat on a mountain, but now AI can generate 100 versions of that instantly.
AI is also letting marketers harness the true power of data. In the past, if brands had 100 data points, they would only end up using 10. With AI, however, analyzing hundreds of millions of consumer data points becomes seamless. Stagwell announced a partnership with Palantir to do exactly that – to build a holy grail of marketing platform that uses AI to leverage proprietary data, gain targeting insights, and deploy campaigns.
At Stagwell, we’re embracing AI because we recognize all of the new creative, experiential, and digital work we can dream up and all of the opportunities AI gives brands – opportunities that were previously unimaginable. It allows us to deliver even better, more unique, outstanding marketing for our clients.
Emerging regions like the GCC are investing heavily in innovation and digital transformation. What distinguishes successful innovation ecosystems, and what lessons can the region draw from other markets?
Successful innovation ecosystems are backed by three fundamental pillars: data, infrastructure that fully leverages that data, and a collaborative environment that empowers teams to think outside the box. From a global perspective, that means partnering with the most cutting-edge tech companies with the most comprehensive data capabilities, as well as with governments and academic institutions, to ensure each pillar is supported by entrepreneurs, researchers, and brands.
The GCC has already made remarkable strides with bold national strategies, major investments in AI and digital capabilities, and a willingness to experiment at scale. The opportunity now is to deepen these innovation ecosystems and ensure they become sustainable business drivers – incentivizing global partnerships with brands, empowering local creators, building stable infrastructure, and attracting and developing talent.
As knowledge becomes the primary driver of economic value, how should marketing and communications leaders rethink talent, tools, and organizational design to stay competitive?
Collaboration and empowering human creativity with the right tools are the most important differentiators. Are your teams using the same tools and working from a unified platform? Are your tools housed in an intelligent orchestration layer that leverages the strengths of each tool? Are your clients able to access a holistic update of projects across various services?
To address the need for an intelligent orchestration layer connecting people, tools, and data, Stagwell is building what we call The Machine. Serving as a “central nervous system,” The Machine allows us to offer clients all of our services in one place, bring together internal and external tools with ease, and move faster across workflows with the help of agentic AI. Marketers need to embrace AI-powered orchestration as the next step in order to stay competitive.
With AI redefining everything from consumer insight to content creation, where do you see the greatest opportunities, and ethical challenges, for agencies and brands in leveraging AI responsibly?
The opportunities with AI are endless. It can perfect marketing by analyzing data and narrowing targeting to get the right ad to the right person at the right time seamlessly – that’s what we’re doing with the Palantir partnership. It can generate thousands of assets near-instantaneously – that capability is housed in our Stagwell Content Supply Chain, our system of AI tools and workflows designed to help teams produce personalized content at scale. It can completely change consumer interfaces – we’ve built AI customer service agents for brands like Lenovo and T-Mobile. AI empowers us to both improve what we’ve been doing and venture into doing what has never been possible before.
On the risks side, AI is going to differentiate good from bad creativity. AI will also fragment teams. Marketers are using disconnected tools, juggling multiple subscriptions – some of which may go unused. This presents not only collaborative barriers but compliance risk with client proprietary data requirements. That’s why we’re addressing these pain points with Agent Cloud by The Marketing Cloud – a secure, unified tech stack that simplifies access to the world’s leading AI tools, from multimodal LLMs to image and video tools.
How does Stagwell measure the real impact of innovation—whether through growth, societal influence, or client transformation, and what metrics matter most to you personally?
We’re a tech-first company – that’s something that we’ve kept front and center since the founding of Stagwell. That means in everything we do – from the way our internal teams work, to the systems we use, to what we deliver for our clients – we adopt new technology, innovate, and constantly collaborate to think about how technology can push the boundaries of creativity.
From there, the results speak for themselves: are we winning new business and are our existing clients interested in what we have to offer? How many people across our network are using our internal AI tools? Are we getting recognized for our work via industry awards or press? What kind of opportunities – prospective client meetings, events, interviews, fireside chats with investors – are coming our way?
Stagwell is the “tech company’s tech company” because the biggest names in tech – Adobe, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm – are all clients we’ve worked with for years. Our most recent earnings results in Q3 2025 saw our trailing 12-month net new business number reach another record-breaking $472 million. Our top 25 client is now an average $28 million relationship. These numbers show us our innovative approach is paying off.
