Dentsu Aegis Network takes axe to executive suite
Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) has confirmed it has made high level executives Adrian Roeling, Nick Seckold, and Andrew Hewett redundant.
The holding group would not confirm whether the redundancies are part of a broader restructure.
Roeling had been president of Amplifi, the holding group’s media innovation and investment arm, since 2017, Seckold the managing director of DAN marketing agency iProspect since December last year, and Hewett the head of public affairs and communications for the DAN network since 2016.
The redundancies come after Henry Tajer, the former managing director of Amazon Media Group Australia, was named CEO of DAN in January.
DAN agencies, particularly Carat and Vizeum, have had a tumultuous 12 months.
Carat lost the $40m Mondelēz International account, $20m Amart account and Bega (which moved to Thinkerbell after a 10-year relationship with Carat). Most recently, Carat also lost Asahi and Virgin Australia.
It’s experienced a number of staff movements too, losing CEO Paul Brooks (joining Nine), 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 MullenLowe), and the former head of the Disney account, Laura Bartal (becoming partner at Lacuna).
Travis Day resigned as Vizeum MD last July, national head of client solutions Corinne Moth left to join OMD as a business director, and it lost the $15m AFL account early this year.
Brittney Rigby was Mumbrella's deputy managing editor - news and analysis. She left Mumbrella in April 2021.
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Adrian is a great operator and a lovely bloke. I’m sure he will get snapped up in no time (should he want to). Enjoy the break!
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keep sweeping Henry ?
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OMG – leaking talent leads to a sinking ship………….
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Dismantle Amplifi while you’re at it…
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If the chatter is true they’ve lost all the Domain, FFX and Nine business too.
That’s a big loss to some of their ‘specialist’ divisions
Not surprising that they’re having to cut roles.
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Dentsu Aegis Network… You Can’t!
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Adrian is a ripping person and full of ability based on my interaction with him. Will go on to great things but not a surprise as placing all planning/ investment in Amplifi was a dreadful decision and ripped out the only thing the media brands were good at leaving them exposed as a shell of ‘strategy and consulting’. Neither of which they are equipped with to deliver from a capability, leadership and skill POV. I feel for the Prospect guy – he’d only been there for 6 months. Pretty harsh. It will be a tough few years for Henry to reverse engineer over 2 years of inept group leadership and lack of direction but he will do it.
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hey now Outsider looking in I think it’s brutal and unfounded I found the team there very competent and skilled in their marketing strategies.
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hey now outsider looking in I think that’s an unfounded comment, all the amplifi team have been very competent and skillful in their marketing strategies in my experience. be nice
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@Prophet…
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic, but the whole division is a dumpster fire designed to unnecessarily clip the ticket with as little value added as possible.
Agree with Outsider…
Long live in-house / client side programmatic teams and this new breed of consultancy we are seeing pop up. Agency desks are the pits.
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Ripping blokes they may be, but in the most part the track record as presented doesn’t make for good reading.
Look at what happened to Dentsu Media over the tenure as well, it shrunk significantly and that was after it spawned a Vizeum and fattened Carat.
I’d say most leadership teams are looking to hire for success more than they are for lovely people, particularly in these harder times.
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Prophet, I agree the people are great, the structure just doesn’t work. Move investment back into respective planning/strat agencies and dissolve the current model. No attack on the people within the agency intended.
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Shame that these people have left.
@ not surprised….the direction re Amplifi came from overseas and was a non negotiable so it wasn’t previous managements fault, in fact the clients that have left us had great relationships with the previous snr group management! The Dentsu hay days were the last few years when the group grew in size before being messed with by overseas!
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Time for the top end of town to move in – fellas can’t wait to see the band again. A great bunch of blokes to come!
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Client side teams… excessive overheads, limited experience, high turnover and little innovation. Amplifi may not be the best agency model but I think aggregated client trading teams with clout and head count have proven to do a lot more in the programmatic space.
N.b. Don’t work for amplifi
Source: have a lot of knowledge about “in-house” teams
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Good guys and sad to hear – esp Roeling. Attention should be focussed on the tota dumpster fire that is Vizeum. Terrible management, strategy and rep in the last few years. Merging into Carat might solve a few client concerns.
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This is pure gold. [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] With Simon Ryan gone, [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] . Adrian, as nice & well intentioned as he is, [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] Good luck to anyone who is left at DAN. And no, Angela cannot turn the ship around either.
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Reckon there’s a combination of factors that contributed to the downfall of Dentsu Aegis Network. For one I agree that directives coming from overseas were ill-informed, short-sighted and somewhat arbitrary. Strategically Amplifi was weak and undermined the role the implementation teams have in the client relationship (only reinforcing the fact that clients can just lift that function off and take it in house). Needless to say that the consequences didn’t come unnoticed as the ‘exodus’ of executives at both a global and regional levels testifies.
Then there are poor choices from the former CEO to promote his boys club and assign key executive roles to ‘nice’ blokes who rode off the back of a favorable economic climate.
As tough as it is on those affected (they’re human beings too), I support Henry’s bold decision. It is time to let go of the past and shape up the future of the company.
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There is a lot more to sweep…
Long-term insider’s view:
This is a great team up to mid management levels, but… with some bad appointments made at top leadership level, based on personal relationships and corporate politics.
‘Leaders’ who look after themselves more than care about their people cannot be called ‘leaders’ IMO.
Lots of smoke and mirrors, ‘leaders’ who have been appointed because they can talk the talk, even though they cannot possibly walk the walk.
One should wonder… If Carat have lost so many key accounts, how come the National MD is still in his role?
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Hope Henry keeps draining the swamp at DAN. It was a nasty hive of internal politics and profit over people under Simon Ryan.
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Hay days are over at Dentsu.
The previous management did a standout job to maintain and grow the business with great client relationships post the Harold era!
It’s now going to be a smaller business run by different people.
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In times like this you need a leader who’s always put client interests first, who’s never looked to decimate agencies by launching specialist divisions, never created a leadership group not motivated by enormous bonuses
Luckily [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
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Business is about timing, Ryan knows that better than anyone!
I’m an ex Dentsu employee who left years ago and never thought that the business would grow post the Mitchell time, it did and it grew large.
Well done to all involved, a number of people would still be there if local management were able to look after people as they wanted! That says it all!!!
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It does appear that a few of these posts singing the praises of past management have a notable similarity with the over use of exclamation marks.
I certainly do not know the ins and outs of Dentsu but this downturn started well before this year with major losses such as Vic and Fed government and the wheels of pitching and decisions that have resulted in their Q1 &2 losses this year were well and truly cemented in 2018.
Nobody knows if global dictated the Amplify structure (maybe they did) but generally speaking global do not interfere in local markets unless they see the wheels falling off the bus and lack confidence in the decisions being made.
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A number of those made redundant over the past 6 months were indeed smart, capable senior bods. But sadly, these types numbered few. The tragi-comedy that is Vizeum and Carat remain – weighed down by years of ordinary leadership from those who couldn’t read a P&L, manage their leadership teams or produce business strategy (the exception being Sam Hegg) – all the way to day. Vizeum’s turnover in client and staff point to godawful management who seem to be siloed from the wider operating group, whilst Carat is in some real strife with its current leadership and the brain drain that’s occurred. Fold Vizeum into Carat and keep sweeping those who chase individual accolades vs the good of the wider team – and clients. Henry’s got a tough job ahead of him – but one that’s not unachievable.
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[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
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Ok….. a week before I join this Org – so many changes … should I be worried?
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Depends on the agency you’re joining I’d say. If it’s Vizeum – run for the hills. If it’s Carat Melb, Pardillo is a dedicated and fair operator (not too sure about the Sydney operation). If it’s a non media agency, make relationships across the network to understand all of the capabilities – and get a sense of where the traction and future focus is.
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I worked with some of these people years ago and even then DAN had its problems but they weren’t so obvious because the economy was doing relatively well. I think what has become clear in agency land since (despite people like Adrian Roeling etc. being ‘top blokes’) is that you need more than confidence and communications skills for success at the moment. What’s needed is adequate resourcing, real intellect and smarts, agility, innovation and ultimately top results / value for clients. I’m not sure DAN has really organised itself around that principle with its harems – and I’m also not sure if any of these people who’ve moved on or have been made redundant were any more than barely competent politicians and presenters.
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