Diverse global leadership team blends Japanese innovation with a global perspective to drive top line growth for clients
TOKYO, Nov. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Dentsu Group Inc. (Tokyo: 4324) (ISIN: JP3551520004) (President & CEO: Hiroshi Igarashi; Head Office: Tokyo) today announced a globally diverse and integrated leadership team to drive its global business forward from FY2023. The global leadership team will ensure further integration of the Group’s diverse capabilities to deliver top line growth for clients, while allowing dentsu to realize sustainable enhancement of corporate value. The creation of a new global management structure follows dentsu’s announced intention to integrate Dentsu International and Dentsu Japan Network into a single dentsu organization around the world from January 1, 2023 and will strengthen the voice of the client in all strategy discussions. The simplified structure will allow the business to foster agile decision-making, strategic focus and clarity across the group whilst driving operational excellence across all functions.
Key Points of Management Structure Renewal
Formation of the Group Management Team, one management team to promote global management, accelerate business transformation and further enhance management diversity to achieve business growth and the sustainable enhancement of corporate value.
The Group Management Team is headed by President & CEO Hiroshi Igarashi and consists of 36 globally diverse Group Management members, including the 21-person Group Executive Management with executive responsibility. The team directly governs the four business regions worldwide.
The Group Executive Management constitutes the Group Executive Management Meeting, the executive decision-making body, whose members are appointed by the President & CEO, as well as the heads of business and corporate responsibility in key areas.
Group Management Team roles and responsibilities:
CEOs from across the four business regions come together to optimize the global business and align around a truly global management framework, including the selection of the first non-Japanese global CFO and the hiring of a new and internationally experienced CHRO from Google Japan.
Appointment of Chief Global Client Officer and Chief Integrated Solutions Officer to align dentsu closely to its clients and drive growth.
Appointment of Chief Governance Officer, Chief Culture Officer, and Chief Sustainability Officers to strengthen dentsu’s environmental, social and governance efforts across clients and society.
Appointment of Chief of Staff to directly work with the President & CEO on policy setting, implementation, and decision making.
Hiroshi Igarashi, President & CEO, said, “We have formed a global Group Management Team to further contribute to our clients’ business growth and the realization of a better society by strengthening our Integrated Growth Solutions, and to enhance our corporate value. Under this team, we will realize the potential our 65,000-strong, worldwide employee-base, bringing together their unique strengths within the countries and regions in which dentsu operates. This will allow us to achieve global business growth and improve profitability through synergies and increased efficiency. Through this renewal of our management structure, we will not only achieve the goals of our medium-term management plan, which concludes in FY2024, but also increase the certainty of long-term, sustainable growth beyond that date. At the same time, we will contribute to the betterment of our customers, partners, employees, consumers, and society as a whole.”
Group Management Team
The members of the Group Management Team (36 Group Management in total, including 21 Group Executive Management) as of January 1, 2023 are as follows. The Group Management Team will be responsible for the execution of the whole of dentsu, which consists of approximately 900 companies doing business in 145 countries, not just the Dentsu Group Inc.
(1) Appointment of 21 Group Executive Management (effective January 1, 2023)
As of January 1, 2023, Hiroshi Igarashi and Arinobu Soga will remain as Representative Directors, and Nick Priday and Norihiro Kuretani will remain as Directors.
(2) Appointment of 15 Group Management (effective January 1, 2023)
Notes to editors:
Hiroshi Igarashi, President & CEO, Dentsu Group Inc.
Hiroshi Igarashi joined Dentsu Inc. in 1984, marking the start of more than three decades in various account management divisions. He has handled sectors as diverse as food & beverage, financial services, mobility, electronics, entertainment, and retail, focusing in particular on business development and on the creation of solutions with roots in social issues and sports. Igarashi became an Executive Officer of Dentsu in 2017, and he additionally assumed the role of Head of Japanese Business the following year.
After being named a Director and Executive Officer of what was then Dentsu Inc. and now Dentsu Group Inc. in March 2018, Igarashi worked to promote group governance, develop business strategies, and drive group-wide initiatives. With the transition to a holding company structure in January 2020, he assumed the roles of Dentsu Group Inc. Co-COO; Dentsu Japan Network President & CEO; and Dentsu Inc. Representative Director, President & CEO. Since January 2021, Igarashi has also served as Vice Chairman of the Business Group at Dentsu Group Inc., as well as a dentsu international board member. As President and CEO, Dentsu Group Inc., he is accountable for shaping the Group’s long-term vision and corporate strategy, leading its effective and sustainable execution whilst achieving target metrics.
Igarashi is, additionally, the President of the Japan Advertising Agencies Association.
Arinobu Soga becomes Executive Vice President & Chief Governance Officer, Dentsu Group Inc.
Arinobu Soga joined Dentsu Inc. in 1988, later becoming Chief Financial Officer and then Chief Executive Officer of Geneon Entertainment USA, a dentsu business. He continued to build his career in Japan and abroad, and he was eventually appointed as Chief Financial Officer and Director of Dentsu Group Inc. in 2020. In his new role as Chief Governance Officer, he will be working closely with Group Management to ensure the highest levels of corporate governance across the policies, structures, and processes of the organization.
Haruhiko Hirate becomes Executive Vice President & Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Dentsu Group Inc.
Haruhiko Hirate has over forty years of experience in international business, having played key management roles across organizations such as Hitachi, Draeger, Roche, Merck & Co., GlaxoSmithKline, and Takeda Pharmaceutical. His experience includes executive roles at Global HQs, Region Presidents, Country GM, especially for building new strategies and to execute business transformation. He joined Dentsu Group Inc. in January 2022 as Executive Vice President & Chief Corporate Affairs Officer. Hirate is also a Director at the Japan Center for International Exchange and holds professor roles at the Graduate School of Management, GLOBIS University and Keio Business School, Keio University Graduate School. As Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Dentsu Group Inc., Hirate supports the CEO in planning and executing the Group’s business strategy and transformation across the enterprise, especially within Human Resource Management, Corporate Culture and Communications, to help deliver on Dentsu’s ambitious goals.
Nick Priday becomes Chief Financial Officer, Dentsu Group Inc.
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