This is not the cautious hedging of a CEO worried about the next big crisis. Penn is in ‘go’ mode. “We’ve had the pandemic, the post-pandemic, inflation fears, high interest rates – now we’re looking at lower taxes, lower regulation, a reduction in global tensions,” he says, rattling them off like a checklist. “And everybody’s focused on tariffs. But tariffs are just one element in an economy and people actually like reciprocal tariffs. They may actually result in lower overall tariffs. So people aren’t focusing on the right things.”

And his clients? Not exactly shaking in their boots. “Were they worried about a recession over the last three years? Yes. Are they sitting around now thinking there’s going to be one? No.”

Where does Penn see the growth coming from? Everywhere – except the continent that once ran the world.

“I think everybody but Europe is kind of tuned for growth,” he says, with the finality of a man closing a case file. “The real question is, is Europe going to recognize that and take steps to get its economy moving? Because right now, it’s very difficult for us to deploy capital in Europe relative to the other regions in the world.”

So Stagwell’s money is going elsewhere. The Middle East, for instance, where it has been aggressively investing, and in digital transformation, where it sees its biggest opportunities.

A lot of the skepticism around Stagwell centers on its wafer-thin net income. Sure, Ebitda looks great, but the actual bottom line? Less so. That, Penn argues, is a feature, not a bug.

“We’re investing heavily in technology,” he explains. “Stagwell Marketing Cloud, our identity graph, machine learning, integrating with Adobe – we’re doing a huge amount of heavy lifting right now. But those major tasks will be accomplished and the investment will trail off after 18 months.”

The implication? Once that spending eases, margins will look a whole lot healthier. But could they get blindsided by some major industry shift that forces them to keep spending?

“I can’t answer something I don’t know about,” says Penn, “but I can tell you this: our margins are already quite good. And when you take the tech investments out, they’re from very good to, you know, super excellent.”

Is Stagwell becoming a SaaS business? It’s a question many have asked as tech becomes a bigger part of its model.

“I came out of Microsoft,” Penn reminds us. “Maybe the only senior exec in this industry with deep tech experience. So that’s a core part of Stagwell. But marketing is about the right combination of human creativity and technology. Companies that only do one or the other run out of runway. We don’t.”

And what about scale? The old debate over whether bigger is better?

“Well, actually, tech is a descaler,” he counters. “The whole history of technology is about making scale less important. What matters is global coverage. That’s why we’re expanding into new regions – so we don’t win one contract at a time, but 30 at a time.”

The timing of Stagwell’s earnings release meant it landed the same day as WPP’s. The contrast wasn’t lost on Penn.

“I think some of these companies thought size was an end in itself,” he muses. “They didn’t understand that size is a benefit up to a certain point, and beyond that, it becomes a liability.”

The implication is clear: Stagwell, the Goldilocks network, is aiming to eat the big holdcos lunches. “We’re hiring while they’re firing,” Penn says matter-of-factly. “That puts us in a good marketplace. People want to be on a growth journey, not a retrenchment one.”