Carat MD Simon Williams leaves agency as part of ongoing DAN restructure
Simon Williams, Carat’s national managing director, has left the business, the latest departure in a broader restructure of the Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN).
A DAN spokesperson said that these “changes to the business” are part of the Amplifi reintegration. However, despite this reintegration, DAN appointed Michael Bass as chief investment officer of Amplifi just this week. Williams’ departure is in line with suspicions around what would happen to the role following Sue Squillace’s appointment to the CEO role last month, but in contradiction to confirmation from a DAN spokesperson at the time that Williams would stay in his role, which he only began in September last year.
“As part of the reintegration of Amplifi Australia’s Investment and Solutions capability back into the Group’s media brands, we’ve made some changes to the business. We are unable to comment further on these changes as they affect our people,” DAN said in a statement provided to Mumbrella.
Williams has been with DAN since 2015
The group-wide restructure began in May, a few months into Henry Tajer’s tenure as CEO, when DAN took an axe to its executive suite.
Before being promoted to Carat’s national MD at a difficult time for the agency, Williams was chief client solutions officer for holding group DAN for a year, and at Amplifi previously, serving in roles across the network since 2015.
Carat has been one of DAN’s most troubled agencies, losing a number of high-profile staff and accounts.
Despite hiring Squillace, Alex Smith (client lead), Marnie McKeown (head of content services and media integration), Dick Laurie (strategy director) and Tom Andrews (returning to lead the $19.4m Disney account), and promoting Danni Wright to a national role, a number of staff movements have impacted the agency. CEO Paul Brooks left to join Nine, while it’s also lost CMO Andrea Rule (moving to LinkedIn), head of strategy Alex James (shifting to a similar role at PHD), head of digital Michael Corry (jumping ship to 303 Mullen Lowe), and the former head of the Disney account, Laura Bartal (becoming partner at Lacuna).
Carat has also lost big accounts such as Super Retail Group, Virgin Australia, Asahi, Mondelēz International, Amart, and Bega, attempting to counteract them with the addition of United Airlines, Beacon Lighting, Event Hospitality and Entertainment, and Grill’d.
Brittney Rigby was Mumbrella's deputy managing editor - news and analysis. She left Mumbrella in April 2021.
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[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
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[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
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Hmmm… not exactly a shock relevant here. Simon W was a carry over from the previous CEO’s tenure and could very easily be argued, he was promoted far, far too soon. Add to that the poor people reputation across the wider business (and internally at Carat), as well as the lack of clients wins / retention and staff retention… this was on the wall. Onward (and upward?) for Carat, but not the last issue for Dentsu – given the albatross that is Dentsu X and Vizeum.
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This company is a train wreck, at least in Australia.
Who’s next to go?
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All we need is for Simon to join Amplify to complete the confusion!
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[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] should be next
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Many more going soon…
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Looks like sanity is returning to the place.
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Many more already gone! Restructures mean that triggers need to be pulled but an over communication policy that doesn’t communicate anything to staff means a lot of eject buttons are being pushed. Dentsu is harder to read than the Odyssey right now
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We all knew it
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Dentsu seems to buy successful agencies and they all inevitably end up in ruins … The thing they all have in common is DAN.
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