"We're in the business of building brands." That's how Chrissie Hanson explains the new Carat, and it's also a fair description of her career. She is dentsu's new North America Media CEO and Global Brand President of Carat, and three months in, the agency she started at in London already sounds like her.
She matters now because dentsu needs a builder. The company posted a record ¥327.6 billion loss for 2025, and in March it hired one of the most respected strategists in American media buying to help write what comes next.
Before her first day, she did something almost no executive in her position does. She told Ad Age she spent four and a half months of garden leave with her family, reading, and studying Japanese. Dentsu is headquartered in Tokyo. That one choice tells you most of what you need to know about how she works.
At a Glance
Name: Chrissie Hanson
Title: North America Media CEO, dentsu, and Global Brand President, Carat
Company: dentsu
Based in: New York, at dentsu's NYC office
In the job since: August 2026 (hire announced March 13, 2026)
Previously: CEO, OMD USA; Global Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Partner, OMD Worldwide; Mediacom; Carat London
Education: LLB, Durham University; Postgraduate Marketing & PR, Manchester Metropolitan University; IPA Excellence Diploma
Boards and affiliations: Advertising Research Foundation; American Advertising Federation; Jury President, Cannes Lions and Dubai Lynx
Best known for: Strategy-first media planning, and leading OMD USA to Ad Age's 2025 US Media Agency of the Year