NOVUS Taps Digital Strategist Libby Morgan as CEO to Lead Data-Driven Pivot

CHICAGO, IL – January 05, 2026 – Independent media agency NOVUS today announced the appointment of Libby Morgan as its new Chief Executive Officer, a strategic move signaling the firm’s accelerated evolution from a media buying specialist to a comprehensive architect of data-driven growth. Morgan, a veteran digital transformation leader, joins from MERGE where she was Chief Digital Officer, and will succeed Melony Rios, who led the agency for over five years.

The appointment comes at a critical inflection point for the media industry, where agencies are increasingly under pressure to transcend traditional planning and buying roles. Instead, clients now demand strategic partners who can navigate a fragmented media landscape to deliver measurable business outcomes like revenue growth, market share, and ROI. Morgan’s extensive background in digital commerce and global P&L management is poised to steer NOVUS directly into this new paradigm.

A New Era of Leadership

Libby Morgan brings over two decades of experience driving marketing, commerce, and digital transformation for global organizations. Her career is marked by significant leadership roles, including President of MRM Commerce, a unit of McCann Worldgroup, where she oversaw end-to-end commerce and media activations for major brands. She has a proven track record of building and leading cross-disciplinary teams across the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, helping giants like Nestle, HP, and Sanofi align their business strategy with technology to produce tangible results.

Most recently at MERGE, she served as the firm's first Chief Digital Business Officer, tasked with integrating experience, engineering, and platform services to drive client traffic and transactions. This deep expertise in connecting marketing efforts directly to commercial outcomes is central to her new mandate at NOVUS.

"NOVUS has a long history of delivering smart, accountable media solutions," said Morgan in a statement. "I'm excited to build on that foundation as we help clients navigate complexity with precision, personalization, and performance that drives meaningful growth."

The transition marks a new chapter for the agency, which saw significant evolution under former CEO Melony Rios. A 20-year veteran of the company, Rios was instrumental in transforming NOVUS from North America's largest print buyer into a modern multimedia powerhouse. Her successor’s appointment is framed not as a course correction, but as the next logical step in the agency's journey.

"We are thrilled to welcome Libby as CEO at a pivotal moment for our industry," said Dave Murphy, Executive Chair at NOVUS. "The future of media sits at the intersection of data, technology, and human insight, and this appointment reflects our commitment to leading that future. Libby brings the vision and expertise needed to drive intelligent planning and buying, advanced personalization, and rigorous measurement of impact across all media channels, creating growth and real results for our clients."

The Broader Shift from Media Buyer to Growth Architect

NOVUS's leadership change is emblematic of a seismic shift occurring across the entire advertising and marketing landscape. For years, media agencies primarily competed on their ability to secure ad space efficiently. Today, that model is insufficient. The rise of sophisticated data analytics, programmatic advertising, and a complex customer journey spanning dozens of digital and offline touchpoints has redefined an agency's value proposition.

Modern agencies are now expected to be data-centric growth partners. This competitive space includes performance marketing specialists like Metric Theory, growth marketing firms like NoGood, and data science-first agencies such as Deducive. These competitors have built their brands on leveraging advanced analytics, predictive modeling, and multi-channel attribution to deliver scalable growth for clients ranging from DTC startups to Fortune 500 companies.

By explicitly stating its intention to become an "architect of growth," NOVUS is positioning itself to compete in this advanced arena. The challenge lies in integrating its unique strengths with the broader capabilities required to offer full-funnel, end-to-end solutions that directly tie marketing spend to business success.

Leveraging a Unique Geospatial Edge

What distinguishes NOVUS in this crowded field is its foundational expertise in hyperlocal media, planned and bought through the lens of geography. Founded in 1987, the agency built its reputation by applying data and rigor to newspaper buying, creating what former CEO Melony Rios once described as an early form of programmatic for print. This location-first approach remains the core of its DNA.

The agency is fueled by a sophisticated engine of marketing science and geospatial analytics. It has developed proprietary software to aggregate millions of data points—from client sales figures to third-party syndicated data and subscriber information—down to a sub-ZIP code level. This allows for the rapid creation of highly customized media plans and predictive ROI models for clients with thousands of physical locations.

This capability is powered by a suite of proprietary tools:

• Proximity: A programmatic trading desk that enables digital campaigns targeted with hyper-local precision, down to a specific trade area or store level.
• Beacon: A tool that analyzes FCC data to calculate the precise signal strength of every terrestrial radio station in the U.S., ensuring audio campaigns reach their intended geographic audience without waste.
• FullSail: A planning tool that optimizes the media channel mix across the entire marketing funnel—from awareness to conversion—at a DMA or even sub-DMA level, based on modeled sales response across all media types.

This methodology has produced concrete results. For one major retail client, Walgreens, NOVUS developed a predictive ROI model at the ZIP code level that identified areas of inefficient print spend. By reallocating 30% of that budget to more effective digital and print tactics based on local data, the agency drove significant cost savings and improved performance.

Charting the Course for Measurable Performance

Libby Morgan's primary task will be to fuse her extensive background in global e-commerce and digital strategy with NOVUS's powerful geospatial engine. The opportunity lies in scaling this unique, location-first capability into a comprehensive growth strategy that delivers measurable outcomes across the full media ecosystem, from national brand campaigns to last-mile conversion.

This integration promises to provide clients with a more holistic view of their marketing impact. By connecting hyperlocal media activations—whether on radio, out-of-home, or digital display—with online behavior and in-store foot traffic, NOVUS aims to solve one of marketing's oldest challenges: accurately measuring the return on investment across disparate channels.

For clients in retail, telecommunications, healthcare, and finance, this means moving beyond vanity metrics toward tangible business results. The goal is to answer critical questions: Did a localized OTT video campaign drive foot traffic to a specific store? How did a targeted radio ad influence online search behavior and subsequent sales? Morgan's leadership signals a clear focus on providing definitive answers, leveraging data to connect every dollar of marketing spend to a quantifiable business outcome.