Ad Industry Veteran Executive Chris Actis to Lead True Media Across Four Offices, Build Agency Growth
Effective immediately, industry veteran Chris Actis joins our six-office media firm with responsibilities for all operations across Columbia, MO; St. Louis, MO; Kansas City, MO and Minneapolis, MN as True Media President. The appointment follows transition planning which has been underway for some time and the amicable resignation of Preston Waller, who has stepped down to pursue other opportunities of both a personal and professional nature.
Actis brings extensive industry, agency, client-side and international management experience to the role, arriving at a time of continued growth for the Columbia-based network of media strategy, digital and programmatic agencies across four U.S. locations (plus two Canadian offices in Calgary and Toronto.) He takes the reigns following revenue growth of 20% from 2020 to 2021 and a 13% increase in personnel following both organic client growth and new business acquisitions.
“Job number one for me at True is to continue building on the incredible momentum and smart growth, we’ve seen year-on-year,” says Chris Actis, president, True Media U.S. “It’s also a tremendously forward-focused time for the agency. We’re evolving our service offerings across every client strategy and service sector, introducing the next evolution of the True brand and are being asked to the table of an increasing number of real, industry-defining brands – and winning. I’m excited to help our teams across all four U.S. offices continue to integrate with our Canadian offices under the leadership of my counterpart Bruce Neve to pull together and reimagine what media agencies can do today.”
Actis brings 20 years of international and U.S. agency leadership experience to his new role. He spent five years in Asia, as president of Mediacom’s China agency as well as president and managing director at Neo, Ogilvy’s performance marketing agency, headquartered in Hong Kong. Beyond management duties, at Mediacom he also oversaw strategic growth, evolution and scaling of FMCG’s media investment in the complex and enormous Chinese digital marketplace. At Neo he led the strategic direction, business operations, product and innovation roadmap, growth strategy and overall media investment for performance marketing clients.
“We’re at a significant juncture in our business growth at True Media,” says Jack Miller, CEO True Independent Holdings (parent company to True Media). “But we’re not interested in growth for its own sake and we hire talent accordingly. Chris is one of those rare industry success stories that truly brings together incredible international and big brand leadership with a deft client service touch and the ultimate, boots on the ground leadership to guide and mentor our teams during exciting times.”
Actis was most recently president at Kruskopf and Co. in Minneapolis and before that Midwest regional president at Initiative, Interpublic’s global media group in Chicago. He got his start in the industry with agencies including JWT and MRM/McCann as well as at Messner where he was part of one of the industry’s first digital departments.
