Commentary

OMD US 'Flattens' Organization, Eliminating Regional Presidents

OMD the Omnicom Media Group agency has restructured, eliminating five senior positions, including the agency’s regional presidents and its CMO. 

The regional operations will now report directly to OMD CEO John Osborn, who has led the agency since the fall of 2017 after a 13-year stint as CEO of sibling shop BBDO New York. 

The regional presidents include Patty Sachs (East); Greg Castronuovo (West); and Lisa Bradner (Midwest).

The agency issued a statement: “Over the past year OMD has been focused on realigning our offer to the reality of how clients, agencies and media partners work today, including  the recent integration of digital specialty and marketing sciences practices at the account team level.”

Earlier this month Omnicom confirmed that it was folding teams from programmatic arm Accuen and search specialist Resolution Media into the group’s three main media agencies OMD, PHD and Hearts & Science.

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The OMD statement continued: “These changes have made us more agile and have reduced friction between our clients and the solutions and services they need. At the same time, they have revealed the need to realign our organizational structure toward a flatter model. As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate the regional president level across OMD USA.” 

That role, the agency explained, “is part of a legacy architecture from OMD’s launch in 2002, when the media departments of Omnicom agencies based in New York (BBDO), Chicago (DDB) and Los Angeles (TBWA) were spun off to form OMD, with senior media executives from each of those agencies taking on a president title.” 

The agency said that that model made more sense when the regional offices were more dependent on their origin agencies and local geographies for business. “However this added layer is no longer consistent with how clients expect agencies to operate today – borderless, frictionless, and fluid.” 

With much of the business development effort handled at the Omnicom Media Group Level, OMD’s CMO position has been deemed “redundant” as has one role at innovation unit OMD Create.  

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