Ashish Bhasin ends stint at dentsu International

Ashish Bhasin, CEO, APAC and Chairman India, dentsu International, has put in his papers.

Confirming the development, Dentsu international said that Ashish Bhasin, CEO dentsu APAC & Chairman India is seeking early retirement from dentsu after 13 years with the business. It is his last day today.

"We will announce a successor in due course. To manage this transition, Simon Jones, CFO APAC & Belli Mathanda, COO APAC will work closely with our global CEO, Wendy Clark, who will have a greater focus on the region during this time supported by the APAC Executive team," dentsu said.

"This strong team is well placed to continue the positive transformation underway in the region as we simplify how we operate and bring together our leading capabilities in service of our clients in Creative, Media and CXM to realise our global ambition to be the most integrated agency network in the world," the company said in the official statement.

In an internal email to his colleagues at dentsu, Bhasin wrote:

"After a very exciting 13+ years of leading India, Greater South and then APAC, I am very pleased to announce that the company has kindly agreed to my request of early retirement.

I have had the honour and privilege of leading some of the best people and the best teams in the world. I thank you all for giving me the massive support you always have given.

I have also been lucky to have very supportive bosses and colleagues and am thankful to Dentsu for so many things.

I have obtained admission for the Harvard Advance Management Program and hope to be able to complete that next year.

My best wishes are always with the company and with all of you, my friends. Dentsu is poised for a great future."

Bhasin joined Aegis Media in June 2008 as Chairman and CEO, South Asia, dentsu and was tasked with launching the business in the market. In 2015, he took the reigns from Rohit Ohri (currently the Chairman and CEO, FCB Group India) to take care of the entire India operations of Dentsu and DAN, when Ohri went on to take charge of the CEO of Dentsu Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) covering all markets in the region outside of Dentsu’s home territory. Bhasin was promoted to CEO, dentsu Asia Pacific in September 2019.

For quite some time, Bhasin went on an acquisition spree to make Dentsu a 3,400-employees from 35-40 employees company. He started his career as a Management Trainee at Lintas and worked with the company for over 20 years.

Earlier in June this year, on the back of its global organisational redesign, dentsu international created a new structure for its creative service line in India. The restructure brought together Dentsu Webchutney, Taproot Dentsu, WatConsult, Perfect Relations, Isobar, Dentsu One, Dentsu India and Dentsu Impact under one umbrella of dentsu Creative India. This structure will eventually consolidate under the two brands - dentsumcgarrybowen (dentsuMB) and Isobar.

In April 2021, Dentsu International also made changes in its media division as part of its global organisational redesign and brought ​​dentsu X, Carat, iProspect and Posterscope under one umbrella of dentsu Media.

Bhasin’s exit from the global advertising network follows several other major leaders leaving the company, including Haresh Nayak (​​President, Posterscope Asia Pacific and MD of Posterscope India), Santosh Padhi (CCO and Co-Founder, Taproot dentsu), Agnello Dias (Former CCO and Co-Founder, Taproot dentsu), Anand Bhadkamkar (CEO, dentsu India), Vivek Bhargava (Head of Performance Group, dentsu International), Shamsuddin Jasani (Group MD, South Asia, Isobar), Gautam Mehra (Chief Data & Product Officer, dentsu Asia Pacific (APAC) & CEO, dentsu Programmatic, South Asia), Rubeena Singh (CEO, iProspect), Gopa Kumar (COO, Isobar India), Soumitra Karnik (CCO at Dentsu Impact, mccgarrybowen and Dentsu India) and many others.

In various press releases, dentsu International India has claimed that all these major leadership positions changes are bound to happen as part of the creation of dentsu 2.0.

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