Dennis Ryan back in Chicago as Digital Kitchen’s CEO

Dennis Ryan

Dennis Ryan’s first day as chief executive officer at Digital Kitchen will be Tuesday, May 17, marking his return to Chicago after five years in Minneapolis.

He will be in charge of DK’s three offices, in Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles, with a total of 94 employees, and is said to be “super excited to be returning to Chicago.”

Digital Kitchen’s clients include AT&T, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and Netflix.

Ryan was tapped to grow the agency and help maintain its creative position as part of the holding company. He will work closely with chairman Paul Mattheus and president Don McNeill, who cofounded the agency in 1995.

Ryan succeeds Seattle-based Bill Fritsch, who’d been CEO since 2012. He is credited with negotiating the sale of DK a year ago to Kyu, part of Japanese agency holding company Hakuhodo, the eighth largest agency holding company in the world with 2014 revenues of $1.9 billion.

Fritsch remains on DK’s board of directors and continues to serve in an advisory capacity. Ryan joined Olson Minneapolis as CCO in 2011. After the agency was sold in 2015, he launched a consultancy with Olson’s former EDC Mike Fetrow, also based in Minneapolis.

During his agency days in Chicago, Ryan was CCO at DDB-owned Element 79 for 10 years until the agency closed in 2011 and he joined Olson as its first CCO. He started his career at DDB Chicago, moved to JWT as ECD and returned to Element 79 shortly thereafter.