Founders: Wesley ter Haar Gin Roberscheuten Terrence de Kat (formerly Terrence Koeman) Co-Founders: Ignacio Liaudat Brady Brim-DeForest Bruno Lambertini
Monks is a digital-first marketing, technology services and consulting company that connects content, data and digital media and technology services and provides solutions in the consulting, enterprise software, gaming, film, social, digital advertising, data, and measurement ecosystems.[2] It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of S4 Capital, Plc.
The company's head office is based in London, United Kingdom. Monks was founded in the Netherlands in January 2001 as Media.Monks by Wesley ter Haar, Erçin "Gin" Roberscheuten, and Terrence de Kat. Additional co-founders were added after the acquisition of Monks by S4Capital in 2018.
Victor Knaap joined the company in 2003 as "Sales Monk" and would manage it as CEO from 2004 until 2018, at first acquiring a 15% share in the company, but later an equal 25% to the other three owners.[3]
Monks joined the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) in 2012, with Ter Haar serving as chairman of that collective today.[4] Monks won 23 Lions at Cannes, including one for the Universal Typeface Experiment, in 2014.[5][6]
In July 2018, S4Capital plc purchased Monks for $350 million.[7]
In August 2019, the former "Head Creative of Film", who quit and sold his shares in the company at the end of 2017 (more than 6 months before the acquisition by S4Capital), sued the company. He argued, unsuccessfully, that had he known about the upcoming acquisition, he would not have decided to quit.[8]
In 2018, S4 Capital acquired data and digital media firm, MightyHive for $150 million. Monks and MightyHive were later merged under the combined Media.Monks brand [9].
In January 2021, S4Capital merged Decoded and Metric Theory into Monks. Jam3 joined Monks in March 2021, and, in August of the same year, all 24 S4Capital companies, plus culture agency Cashmere, became part of Monks. Further mergers include TheoremOne,[10] and XX Artists, both in 2022.[11]
Monks was the fastest growing company in The Netherlands in 2021 and 2022.[12]
On July 18, 2024, Media.Monks was rebranded to Monks. [13]
In January 2020, Monks was the first company to be awarded 200 FWA awards.[14]
Monks was awarded a 2022 Peabody Award in the Immersive & Interactive category for The Uncensored Library project.[15] The project's profile page describes the library as "a monument to press freedom and an innovative back door for access to censored content."[16]
