‘Fundamental to our success’: Ryan Kangisser, the media svengali behind the industry’s biggest pitches

The Riviera might not be where client reviews end, but it’s where conversations about a brand’s next agency often begins. One name top marketers and agency execs often turn to for an introduction or word of advice is Ryan Kangisser, the chief strategy officer and managing partner of media consultancy MediaSense.

“Ryan’s been a consistent person to talk to and to bounce ideas off,” said Simon Peel, vp of marketing at consumer healthcare advertiser Haleon.

Now one of the industry’s leading media and strategy experts, Kangisser’s career is coiled up with the rise of MediaSense, a consulting firm founded in the depths of the Great Recession and now one of the advertising world’s largest and leading firms for media auditing, strategic advice and — crucially for agencies — client reviews.

Kangisser started his career at Profero, a full-service indie agency that was later bought up by IPG in 2014. “What I could never reconcile was that clients didn’t trust me,” Kangisser told Digiday. “There was always a nagging doubt over whether what I was proposing was in my best interest, or the client’s.”

While he’s wary of inserting his own experience into client advice, it was a catalyzing experience. That nagging doubt led to a job as a digital auditor at Billetts (now part of Ebquity), where he crossed paths with Andy Pearch and Graham Brown. When they went on to found MediaSense in 2009, Kangisser became employee number one. “We met Ryan in Palmer’s, a coffee shop in [London neighborhood] Camden,” recalled Brown. “I came away and said: ‘He’ll do’.”

A company’s first hire is “always very important” added Pearch, who moved to a non-executive director role in 2023. “It determines what your business will be.” 

Kangisser’s appointment set the mold for the business’s next 16 years. “He’s been absolutely fundamental for our success,” said Pearch.

While the latter provided expertise on auditing and Brown brought knowhow on reviews, Kangisser brought the nascent firm digital media expertise. “It was a time where clients really needed advice, particularly from a digital perspective… there was a lot of value in getting that independent advice,” added Pearch.

The trio’s first client was Lloyds Banking Group, then one of the U.K.’s biggest advertisers. The company was soon taking on international pitches for brands like BP and Chanel, its media auditing work often giving it a runway to stage agency review for clients down the line.

Peel, a client of MediaSense across two jobs and 14 years, said that Kangisser and his colleagues’ approach differs from rivals and peers.

“Sometimes these types of relationships can be submissive and or subservient. It’s not like that,” he said. “They feel free to put their point of view across and to push what they believe is the right agenda, and it’s always done in a very polite and respectful way, both to the client and to the agency.”

During Peel’s time at Adidas, where he was global head of media, MediaSense was brought in to audit and revise the way the global apparel brand evaluated the performance of its media agencies. “Adidas was trying to move to a focus on brand equity, creativity and using media as a vehicle for growth,” said Peel.

Later, the firm ran Adidas’ agency review in 2017 and 2018 (Mediacom eventually won the contest); Kangisser spearheaded the work. Peel praised his flexibility and willingness to act as a partner, rather than a supplier, of the brand through the process. “They [MediaSense] tend to be more flexible in terms of what the right outcome is for the clients,” he added.

The project was an “inflection point” for MediaSense, which would take on similar projects for brands like Amazon and Coca-Cola. “It was a transition from digital auditing to real organizational and an operational media strategy,” Brown said. “Ryan and we [MediaSense] have just gotten better and better at it.”

For Kangisser, the work itself is more of a draw than the thrill of the deal. Advice sessions can be like providing “therapy” to marketing executives, while consulting and auditing briefs often mean Kangisser and colleagues get to X-ray an entire organization.

“Often clients feel it’s cathartic talking to us, if it’s about their agency model or their own organizational structure,” he said.

There have been other crossroads moments, such as competitor Accenture’s withdrawal from the auditing market in 2020; Brown recalled that MediaSense was able to hire around 20 of its former rival’s staff in the wake of its retreat. In 2021, when private equity house Apiary Capital came knocking, Brown and Pearch sold a controlling stake in the firm they’d started 12 years previously.

The deal set MediaSense on its own path of expansion, acquiring PwC U.K.’s media auditing unit and R3, another pitch consultancy, in 2024. Those deals have given MediaSense uncommon scale in a pocket industry mostly populated by boutique outfits. Since the buyout, Brown said business has tripled revenue and increased headcount threefold to around 270; MediaSense didn’t provide specific turnover figures. 

Pearch has stepped back from the business, and Brown appointed former Accenture Song exec Jamie Posnanski as CEO, with the aim of bringing in an external perspective. 

And yet, Kangisser will remain the firm’s pointman. It’s a role that’ll keep him where he prefers it – in the stage wings, rather than at the shopfront – making introductions, solving problems and staying out of the way.

“There are very few people that intuitively understand the media business the way he does,” concluded Brown. “That’s what he’s grown into.”