Michael Zylstra is an accomplished senior executive and strategist with extensive experience in the marketing industry. Michael has been described as a “Swiss Army Knife” of marketing with global expertise across the full funnel, including ATL, Media, Performance, Digital Experience & CRM. Michael is an trailblazer, bringing innovation not only to creative problems, but to the full view of the business, including TTL solutions, client services, strategy, business process, negotiation, innovation, budgeting, analytical skills, execution, and both internal and external business processes.

Most recently as the Managing Partner of Dentsu Creative Sub Saharan Africa (DC SSA), Michael led a team of over 170 to develop strategic and creative solutions across ATL, BTL, Digital, Content & Social / Influence across South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana & Senegal. In the time he has been in role he has guided the creative line of business to double digit growth and cemented its creative reputation as Africa’s fastest growing agency group. During his tenure DC SA moved to 7th (from 45th) in the EMEA creative rankings, DC Nigeria to #1 and DC Kenya to #3. This ultimately resulted in Dentsu Creative being recognized as #1 new business network in 2023 and the continent’s most creative digital business.

Building systems to enable the business to operate at scale is one of Michael’s superpowers. In his previous role as the Chief Strategy Officer for Dentsu Sub Saharan Africa he launched Dentsu Data Labs. This is the the continent's largest consumer survey and planning tool, with over 3 million unique consumer id’s underpinning the approach. He and his team of 40+ strategists developed playbooks and frameworks to be adopted by the various disciplines and used in training and adoption. By transitioning Dentsu to a people based planning methodology he led the industry in adopting attention metrics. The successful adoption of this approach resulted in the continent's largest brands becoming clients including Heineken, Nestle, Beiersdorf, Ab in Bev and Coca Cola. He worked directly with the various CMO’s to deliver a media and creative approach that was powered by data and delivered both efficacy and growth.

Michael is is equally adept in traditional ATL TV and digital media having built a global performance hub for Publicis across Africa, delivering low cost performance solutions on a global level including Programmatic, Search, Retail and Dynamic Creative.

Michael is particularly proud of setting up methods and structures to launch learning programs for young talent. Many of Africa’s finest strategists began their careers at Dentsu’s strategy school - Curious Minds, where Michael mentored them.

Curious Minds proprietary data and insights, the work garnered multiple Pan African wins for brands including Nestle, ABSA, Beiersdorf, Coca Cola and Diageo amongst others.

Michael’s body of work has been recognised with more than 200 awards, including multiple Cannes Lions, D&AD pencils, One Show and EFFIE awards. His work with Dentsu Nigeria resulted in the country's first ever Cannes Lion in 2023 and became the first ever AB in Bev Creative X Grand Prix winner from Africa.

Michael has been honoured to serve as the Jury President for both the Pan African Cristal awards and LIAF(the Nigerian ad awards). He also represented Dentsu as Africa’s only media jury member at Cannes in 2023.