Dentsu Group Inc. said early Friday (Tokyo time) that it is appointing Takeshi Sano as its new president and CEO effective April 1. He will succeed Hiroshi Igarashi who has been in the role since 2022.  

Sano has been with the company since 1992 and most recently has served as CEO of Dentsu Japan.  

Dentsu said the reason for the change was to “strengthen our competitiveness by accelerating transformation under the new management structure.” 

The announcement came the same day that the company confirmed it will record a goodwill impairment loss of roughly $2 billion for the fourth quarter of 2025. The firm is scheduled to report Q4 and full-year 2025 results later in the day. 

Word of the CEO switch also followed reports last month that the firm’s efforts to sell off some or all of its international operations had failed. The company has been considering selling off those operations for about a year. 

Investor groups including Apollo and Bain had considered possible deals but no agreements have emerged to date. 

The company’s growth has been stunted for several years, leading to the decision to consider strategic alternatives including possible overseas asset sales. For the first nine months of 2025, Dentsu reported organic revenue growth of 0.3% driven by nearly 10% growth in Japan. 

“Generic goals aside, the company botched the integration of its international business and then when that integration proved to be unsuccessful, it failed to sell its international business,” stated marketing consultant Madison and Wall in a note after the planned CEO switch was announced.  

Outside of Japan, M&W noted, “the business has been in something approaching a free-fall with every region declining by single or double digit levels every quarter since shortly after the announcement that Wendy Clark would be leaving the international CEO role in late 2022.”  

That outcome, the firm added, “occurred as the parent company attempted to alter the reporting structure of the international business, leading it from Japan rather than New York or London. A significant number of well-regarded senior executives based outside of Japan departed in the aftermath.”  

The failure to attract buyers for any of the international operations, M&W asserted, is “arguably the worst possible outcome given the elevated uncertainty for employees and clients that has followed.”  

What’s next for the company under new management is hard to fathom, M&W noted. A renewed effort to sell off international assets is likely. But the current chaos at the company provides more opportunities for competitors to “poach both staff and clients until a direction becomes clear.”