Karen Boswell Joins M+C Saatchi Group as Global CEO, Digital Experience, Performance & Consulting
Today, the M+C Saatchi Group announced the appointment of Karen Boswell as global CEO, digital experience, performance & consulting. She will officially join the business in July 2025, overseeing the Group’s media and consulting specialisms, as well as its growing Intelligence function and expanding focus in marketing technologies, including AI.
A client-centric leader, Karen operates at the intersection of technology and brand-building. She joins M+C Saatchi Group from VML where she has been the global chief experience transformation officer, helping drive customer-centric holistic solutions for clients such as Boots UK & Ireland, Ford EU, Perrigo Global, BP Pulse Global and PwC Global. Prior to that, she was chief experience officer EMEA at VML, MD of The Pharm, WPP – a fully integrated and dedicated agency built to service Boots and No7, head of innovation at adam&eveDDB, and held major roles as both an account lead and as a strategy lead at agencies such as AKQA and LBi. She is also a qualified executive coach.
In Karen’s new role, she will lead the strategic direction of data, technology, digital experience, digital media, and consulting across the Group. Sitting on the agency’s executive leadership team, she will manage the media and consulting P&Ls, and drive integration across AI, product, digital, and data strategies, enhancing M+C Saatchi Group’s client services and fuel its ‘Cultural Power’ proposition.
For Karen, ‘Cultural Power’ is about “relevance, resonance, and responsibility. In my role, it means building a company that helps clients show up in culture with authenticity – not just noise. It also means making sure our own teams reflect the diversity and dynamism of the audiences we serve. I’ll be pushing for work that earns attention, creates change, and builds lasting value. We’re not here to chase trends; we’re here to set them – in a way that’s thoughtful, measurable, and brave,” she states.
Karen’s first priority upon joining will be “to listen: to our people, our clients, and our partners – and understand where we can accelerate the most. We’re not starting from scratch; there’s huge talent and momentum across media, consulting, and intelligence. My role is to connect the dots, to create more shared vision, more seamless collaboration, and sharper value for clients. I want us to move from operating as a set of capabilities to acting as a strategic growth engine for our clients,” she says.
Building on the Group’s restructuring efforts from last year, Karen will focus on unlocking even more positive outcomes. “We’ll start by aligning around shared client goals and breaking down silos where they slow us down,” she explains. “That means common language, joined-up data, shared success metrics, and cross-functional teams that build together from day one. The aim is to help clients go further, faster – whether they come to us for brand strategy, performance media, or consulting on AI readiness. Integration should feel invisible to the client, but invaluable in the results we deliver.”
On the subject of AI, amplification of human creativity – not its replacement – is top of the agenda. “The magic lies in combining deep cultural insight with intelligent systems – to help brands move at the speed of culture and the speed of business, but most pertinently to keep with the pace of trust.” She’s particularly excited about “scalable innovation: AI tools that power performance media with greater precision, data platforms that unlock faster decision-making, and creative automation that lets ideas travel further. But we’ll always ground that in empathy, imagination, and impact. That’s what makes tech meaningful.”
Using her considerable industry experience, Karen will look to implement three key elements to help the Group’s clients navigate complexity. “Start with the customer, build with agility, and design for scale,” Karen explains. “At VML and WPP, I saw the power of customer-centric ecosystems – where media, content, data, tech and CX all pull in the same direction. I also learned that clients don’t need more PowerPoint – they need more prototypes. I want us to bring that spirit of experimentation into the heart of our consulting and media work; to test, learn, and move fast without losing the richness of strategic thinking.”
“Growth is only meaningful if it’s mutual,” Karen comments, reflecting on what success will look like for her and the team under her leadership. “If our clients grow, our people grow, and our business grows in symbiosis.” Her interest is going to be firmly on outcomes, not outputs, measured by “market share won, new products launched, customer relationships deepened.” For the Group’s teams, “I want them to feel supported and inspired to continually push beyond their boundaries. For me personally, it’s about creating clarity, unlocking talent, and building a business that’s future-facing and values-driven. Success isn’t just what we deliver – it’s how we deliver it,” she explains.
Zaid Al-Qassab, CEO, M+C Saatchi Group, said in a statement on her hiring: “Karen is a truly client-centric leader, with a deep understanding of how to combine data, creativity, and technology to drive transformative growth. Her appointment is a powerful step forward in realising our ambition to keep our clients at the cutting edge of marketing innovation. She will work shoulder-to-shoulder with our regional CEOs, specialism CEOs, clients and partners to deliver our strategy and delight our clients, and I can’t wait for her to get started.”
As well as Boswell’s appointment, M+C Saatchi Group has also announced that Rhonda Hiatt, who has been operating as CEO, M+C Saatchi Consulting on an interim basis, will take up that position permanently, effective immediately. Rhonda has accelerated the agency’s plans to unify its consulting expertise and businesses and has been instrumental in the development of new-to-the-world products, such as the recently launched Cultural Power Index.
