More Than 60 Years Inside the World's Biggest Agencies. Now They're Building Terrific.

TL;DR

• Terrific's commercial leadership now brings more than 60 years of experience from agencies across Havas, WPP and Interpublic.
• Alberto Canteli Suarez, President and Chief Commercial Officer, spent 26 years at Havas. John Edward Arnott Lynn, Chief Business Officer, spent nearly four decades at Ogilvy, MRM, Grey and VML.
• Both chose owned social commerce for the same reason: brand and media budgets are moving from renting attention to owning the relationship, the data and the sale.

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The people who built the attention business

For four decades, the advertising industry's job was easy to describe and hard to do: put a brand in front of the right people, at the right moment, at scale.

Alberto and John did that job at the highest level, running agencies across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America for some of the biggest brands in the world.

That job is now changing faster than at any point in their careers.

WPP estimates commerce media now takes 15.6% of global ad spend, ahead of linear and connected TV at 14.6%. The holding companies are reorganizing around it. WPP launched WPP Commerce in April 2026. Omnicom, which became the world's largest holding company when it completed its acquisition of Interpublic in November 2025, folded its shopper agency TPN into Flywheel. Publicis agreed to buy LiveRamp for about $2.2 billion.

Budgets are following the transaction. People who spent their careers inside the attention business know what that means: the next advantage belongs to whoever owns the moment someone decides to buy.

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Two careers, one conclusion

Alberto Canteli Suarez · President and Chief Commercial Officer

Alberto joined Havas in 2000 and held leadership roles across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia, overseeing advertising, media, e-commerce, events, health and sports agencies. In May 2026, the Spanish Chamber of Commerce and the Spanish Embassy in the UAE named him Spanish Businessman of the Year in Dubai.

From Dubai, he now leads Terrific's global commercial strategy and its expansion into the Middle East, starting with the UAE.

"I chose Terrific because it addresses a real commercial problem. Brands and media companies create enormous attention through social content, but they need to turn that attention into conversion, data and long-term customer value inside properties they control."

— Alberto Canteli Suarez

John Edward Arnott Lynn · Chief Business Officer

John started at Ogilvy in London in 1986 and rose to general manager at Ogilvy in Madrid. He became CEO of MRM Spain, then held European regional roles at MRM and across EMEA. He spent eight years as President and CEO of Grey Group Spain, then more than eight years as CEO of VML Latin America, based in Miami. Along the way he partnered with clients including P&G, SEAT, GSK and La Caixa.

At Terrific he builds strategic partnerships and go-to-market programs where content meets commerce.

"People don't just want to watch anymore. They want to participate. … The strongest communities aren't built by talking to people. They're built by creating something together."

— John Edward Arnott Lynn

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What they saw from the inside

Attention is rented. Relationships compound. A campaign ends, and the audience goes back to the platform it came from. What lasts is the relationship and the data, but only when the brand owns the surface where they happen.

Budgets follow the transaction. The closer media gets to a sale, the more it's worth. That makes the question of who owns the checkout, the customer and the data a strategic one, not a technical one.

Participation beats reach. Audiences want to vote, react, ask and buy in the moment. Live shopping, polls and shoppable video turn viewers into participants, and participants into customers. On the brand's own site, every one of those moments becomes first-party data.

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What it means for agencies

Agencies are brilliant at creating demand. What they rarely control is where the purchase happens.

Terrific is built as infrastructure, not as a single app or channel, and it runs white-label. An agency can deploy owned social commerce for its clients under the client's own brand: live shopping, shoppable video and an always-on shoppable feed on the client's site, with the first-party data flowing back to the client. The agency plans it, runs it and proves it.

Alberto and John have spent their careers on the agency side of the table. They're building Terrific's partnerships to work the way agencies actually work.

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What it means for brands and media companies

• Brands bring the social behavior they already pay for onto their own site. Terrific's published results: +39% conversion rate lift, +42% revenue per visitor and +27% average order value.
• Media companies add a revenue line beyond the CPM. Timeline placements average a 2.7% click-through rate, against roughly 0.1% for standard display (2026 Terrific Media Benchmark).

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A word from our CEO

"Alberto and John have spent more than 60 years on the agency side of the world's biggest brands. They know what clients will ask for next, and right now it's ownership: of the relationship, the data and the revenue. Having them build Terrific's commercial engine tells you where this market is going."

— Israel Grintz, Founder and CEO, Terrific

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Learn more

Agencies, brands and media groups: book a strategy call with the team.

Related: Alberto Canteli Suarez Joins Terrific as President and Chief Commercial Officer

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About Terrific
Terrific is owned social commerce infrastructure for brands, retailers and media companies. It lets them run their own social experience, from live shopping to shoppable video and interactive feeds, on the websites they own, keeping the audience, data and revenue. Its AI layer helps plan, run and optimize every experience. Terrific is an international company with bases in Dubai, Mexico City and Paris.

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