Stagwell Names Liz Rutgersson Global CEO of Assembly; Connie Chan Elevated to Lead APAC

# What changed Stagwell announced on September 14, 2026, that Liz Rutgersson is the new Chief Executive Officer of Assembly with global and North America responsibilities. Connie Chan has been elevated to CEO of Assembly APAC and will continue as Chief Growth Officer of Stagwell APAC. Both moves take effect immediately.

# Who the leaders are Liz Rutgersson brings more than 20 years of marketing experience across brand, digital media, analytics and search optimization. She spent 16 years at dentsu and most recently served three years as CEO of iProspect North America. Her client roster has included Hilton, eBay, Salesforce, Ferrero, Dollar General and Tesco.

Connie Chan has about 30 years of experience in media, marketing and business leadership. Since becoming Stagwell APAC's Chief Growth Officer, she has helped expand the network's footprint in key Asia-Pacific markets, driven new business growth and advanced regional media and digital experience capabilities.

# Why Stagwell made the change Stagwell framed the appointments as steps to accelerate Assembly's growth and strengthen client partnerships globally and in APAC. Slavi Samardzija, Stagwell's Global Chair of Media & Commerce, will be the executive both report to for Assembly leadership matters. The company pointed to Assembly's talent base and global scale as foundations to build on.

# Immediate context inside Stagwell and Assembly The leadership moves follow other Stagwell initiatives to broaden its media offerings and APAC presence. Recent steps mentioned in the announcement include launching The Media Machine and Stagwell Search+, opening an APAC headquarters in Singapore, and integrating Assembly with ADK GLOBAL. Assembly's stated structure includes more than 3,000 experts across 40+ offices worldwide.

Rick Acampora, the former global CEO of Assembly, moved earlier in the year to a holding-company role focused on new commercial frameworks. Jill Kelly, previously CEO of Assembly North America, will support the leadership transition to provide continuity for clients and teams.

# Stagwell say about priorities Rutgersson described her view that agencies should proactively shape the future rather than only react to industry change. She emphasized building around client business needs, using client performance as the measure of agency success, and organizing the agency around client growth.

Samardzija highlighted both new hires as leaders with records of driving client growth and building teams capable of operating in a fast-changing media landscape.

# What this means operationally

• Driving new business growth and client retention, leveraging Rutgersson's track record in those areas.
• Accelerating Assembly's regional execution in APAC under Chan while maintaining broader Stagwell growth duties.
• Continuing integration of media, creative and commerce capabilities across Stagwell's network and Assembly's full-funnel services.

# Bottom line