• by Wayne Friedman , July 28, 2021

Longtime media agency executive Kris Magel will become the vice president and head of agency development for Samba TV, the media advertising and analytics company.

Magel will be responsible for building partnerships with a focus on the industry trend of moving to first-party data as a new currency for media planning and measurement, according to the company.

His hire comes amid what Ashwin Navin, co-founder and CEO of Samba TV, calls “existential threats to media agencies, due to the growing dominance of walled gardens.”

Navin says marketers need transparency to develop cross-platform media plans for better business outcomes.

He added: “We’ve built an agnostic and global TV dataset with comprehensive identity solutions for agencies to [match] our first-party data with client-data to help advertisers. ... Who better than Kris to form deep partnerships across the ecosystem that will usher in the right kind of innovation.”

Magel comes to Samba TV from Dentsu, where he was president of media clients, responsible for growing cross-media business for existing and new brand advertisers.

Before Dentsu, Magel was president of IPG’s Initiative media agency, East Coast, where he was also Chief Investment Officer. He also held other senior level media-buying posts at Publicis media agencies Zenith, Optimedia and DeWitt Media.