Media in Canada’s annual Media Leader of the Year program is being marked, once again, with celebratory profiles about each leader-in-the-running for 2024. Over the next few days, we’ll publish the articles for each nominee, with the overall winner decided by the editorial team and announced at the Media Innovation Awards on November 27. First up, let’s take a look at finalist Karel Wegert at Media Experts. Check out this year’s other nominees, Karine Courtemanche and Samatha Kelley.
Karel Wegert, CEO of Media Experts, believes that honesty and transparency have helped him achieve success in his professional life. He believes that prioritizing the well-being of people, from agency members to client marketers, is one of the hallmarks of an industry leader.
“You need to be invested in all parts of your job to succeed. I truly believe our best work is done when we care deeply about all the aspects of why we are doing it,” Wegert says. “A company is a community where everyone has to do their part to keep things running smoothly. I’m always happy to roll up my sleeves and do the work, no matter what is needed in any given situation.”
In 2023, Wegert rejoined Media Experts to take the helm. He first joined the IPG family in 2007, when he became part of Media Experts’ digital division. During his initial 15-year tenure, he played a pivotal role in the agency’s growth, making it Canada’s first Google-certified media agency, launching agency programmatic trading desk Xpeto, and creating an internal audience and analytics team to use data sets that take into account the nuances of the Canadian marketplace. However, in 2022, Wegert transitioned within IPG to lead Kinesso Canada as president, where he oversaw the deployment of the company’s marketing intelligence engine platform.
His time at Kinesso provided him with valuable insights for his recent work at Media Experts. “After 15 years with the company, I’m not sure I would have really understood how the agency needed to evolve if I hadn’t had the opportunity to step away and observe the company from a completely new angle,” he notes. “That job exposed me to the broader media world outside of Canada and North America. It offered me insights into what clients were asking for and how other markets were approaching industry challenges.”
Since rejoining Media Experts last year, he has focused on repositioning the agency. So far, Wegert has carried out several restructurings of the team to better support its capabilities. He has made changes to the management team, tagging team members for leadership roles, such as strategy VP Lindsay Garfinkle, client services VP Emily Furtado, and strategy group director Taylor Guthrie. He is also adding a new product and innovation role, which will focus on enhancing the agency’s product offering, driving agency growth and developing new ways of working.
The results of his restructuring and refresh of the Media Experts agency brand has led to external and internal wins. Earlier this year, the shop added Honda to its portfolio and brought back WestJet after having worked with the brand for 15 years during Wegert’s first tenure at Media Experts (almost $90 million in billings). The agency has also begun new work with TonyBet, Kings College, TVO, and Netflix this year. In addition, the agency has seen positive retention rates, and collected over 30 awards in the past year for clients like Pizza Pizza and Interac.
“Aside from growing our business, I’m also focused on maximizing the value we get from our IPG Mediabrands technology platforms, applying them to our client’s business in unique and specifically Canadian ways to drive incremental value,” Wegert says. For example, he has been adding IPG data points to better evaluate the health of its clients on an ongoing basis, linking this metric directly to the ongoing planning process, campaign performance and business outcomes.
Wegert also takes pride in Media Expert’s heightened involvement in On Our Own’s annual fundraising campaigns, considering it one of his most notable accomplishments as CEO. The agency has been organizing and supporting an annual comedy show for the nonprofit, which provides education and affordable housing to young parents and their at-risk children in need. To date, the initiative has raised more than $1.1 million, according to the agency.
“I’ve had the privilege of spearheading outreach to many of our valued partners in support of this event… The response has been truly inspiring as our partners have come to look forward to the event,” Wegert says. According to him, the leadership position has given him the opportunity to champion a broader commitment to charitable giving across Media Experts, which has also led pro bono initiatives for the Merit Award Bursary Program – a charity that works to inspire high school students to continue their education.
Wegert explains he is now in the second phase of the agency’s revamp, which is focused on managing last year’s growth. “That means evolving processes where needed, investing in our people, ensuring we have the right talent in the right places and completing the work around our planning process and how it connects to our bigger ambition as an agency,” he says.
“I’ve been fortunate to have a number of influential role models over the course of my career. The two most obvious ones are my predecessors, Robert Jenkyn and Mark Sherman, both of whom taught me so much about business, media, leadership and humility,” he says. “Longer term, I often think about the history and legacy of this agency… If I can look back on my time here and say that I lived up to the standards we set and delivered on our promises, then I will feel I’ve succeeded.”
