January 25, 2023
Dentsu International Folds As Part Of 'One Management' Approach, Details To Come
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, September 6, 2022
Dentsu Group this morning confirmed that Wendy Clark will leave as global CEO of Dentsu International at year end, and that the role will be phased out as part of a broader restructuring of the holding company to a “one management team” approach.
As part of the transition, the holding company is also phasing out its two separate business units approach – Dentsu Japan and Dentsu International – and consolidating it into a single organization divided into four operating regions: Japan, Americas, EMEA and APAC led by group President & CEO Hiroshi Igarashi.
As part of the integration process, Dentsu will will launch a “dedicated integration office” on September 15, 2022 to “drive a seamless transformation process.”
Clark, who joined Dentsu two years ago as global CEO of what was then called Dentsu Aegis Network, helped rebrand it as a Dentsu International organization overseeing its major media operations Carat, Dentsu X and iProspect.
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She joined from CEO of Omnicom’s DDB Worldwide unit, and held senior advertising roles at Coca-Cola Co., AT&T and GSD&M.
Dentsu said she will maintain her current role through the end of the year.
The company will provide more detailed updates about its new global management structure, including changes to its senior management lineup,” it said in a statement.
Details will be announced in November around the time of Dentsu's quarterly earnings release. In the meantime, Dentsu's media operations will continue to report to Dentsu Media Americas CEO Doug Rozen.
In all honesty, it's a bullshit problem/solution. The only issue really is: CEO or no CEO? At the end of the day, the single CEO on top won't be able to manage everything, understand every national nuance and get the company to grow by him/herself. So... instead of a CEO, they will get an EVP or Managing Director or whatever. The industry needs to be way less focused on titles and much more focused on the realities of the market... the broad international brush is useful and gives international clients the continuity they need, but what really sells is the deep understanding of the local population.