• by Todd Wasserman , October 14, 2021

A new fledgling holding company has been unveiled and it is billing itself as “the first people-centric advertising group.” 

Called Meet The People, the New York-based firm says it wants to serve as alternative to the major ad-marketing holding companies.

The new firm is led by Tim Ringel, Global CEO; Tom Armbuster, global COO; and Natalie Alberta Dusey, global chief of staff and corporate secretary. 

“With Meet The People, we’re evolving creative and digital with extraordinary talent and data,” said Ringel. “We‘re building a unique, digital-first infrastructure from the ground up that will appeal to brands that are looking to scale with soul and move away from the status quo. Our agency partners will cut through the clutter of the industry and become an extension of a client’s team, ambition and success.” 

Ringel added that, “Traditional holding company players own sixty percent of the market, but they are incredibly siloed and don’t integrate across all relevant services for their clients. He continued that, “We are claiming our space by rolling up specialized entrepreneurial agencies under one roof to become a true integrated global partner, with a breadth and depth of experience that will be hard to rival.” 

Ringel, Armbruster and Dusey most recently worked together at full service, luxury brand-focused creative agency Spring Studios and the European performance marketing company, Artefact (previously NetBooster). Ringel was Global CEO at IPG Mediabrands’ Reprise, where he doubled the size, revenue and profit of the agency in just 24 months, scaling it to 3,000 people. He is also an active investor in well-known EU and US early-and late-stage startups.  

The company has a plan to deploy $150 million for M&A and operations over the next two years. Financial support will come from Innovatus Capital Partners, LLC, an investment advisor and portfolio management group. 

Innovatus Capital Partners acquired agencies VSA Partners, Public Label and Match Retail in Q1 of this year. Clients within the group include IBM, Toyota, Google, Adidas, PepsiCo, Harley Davidson, and more.

Ravi Bhagavatula, partner at Innovatus Capital Partners said, “As we look to expand our portfolio and grow our marketing services capabilities, there is no stronger leadership team to build this vision than Tim, Tom and Natalie and the immense talents of each individual agency. Meet The People has arrived.”

In addition to New York the group has offices in Chicago, Boulder, Toronto, Montreal.