Dentsu appoints ANZ CEO, Patricio De Matteis
Dentsu International has appointed Patricio De Matteis as its new CEO for ANZ.
De Matteis comes from the world of consulting, currently leading the digital arm of Cognizant as chief digital officer, and has held past roles at PwC and Accenture Interactive (now Song).
During his career at Accenture, he led the acquisition of The Monkeys, Maud and Fjord in the local market, as well as Pacific Link Group in China and IMJ in Japan. He spent 14 years at Accenture Interactive, helping build the business to a 1600 person operation.
He will start on 1 January, replacing Angela Tangas who recently moved to the UK within the Dentsu network.
The move bookmarks a transitional period for Dentsu, which has seen a number of senior appointments made to its leadership team. Over the past 12 months this has included Kirsty Muddle as Dentsu Creative CEO, Danny Bass as Dentsu Media CEO, John Riccio leading Merkle across ANZ and APAC, and Chris Bower at Dentsu Solutions.
De Matteis will now report into Rob Gilby, APAC CEO who was also only appointed in July this year.
Gilby, said: “Patricio’s deep knowledge coupled with his expertise from client and consulting sides is unique and will complement the strengths of our existing leadership team in the Australian and New Zealand markets
“Patricio has a genuine understanding and appreciation of the importance of history, heritage and creativity having worked across both the ANZ and APAC markets, including some time living in Dentsu’s birthplace, Japan. His attitude to sustainable growth was immediately clear and his commitment to people and doing what is right cemented in our minds that we had found the right person to lead the business. His experience speaks to the vision for our business and its wider role in the APAC market as we progress our one Dentsu strategy. With Patricio on board, Dentsu now has one of the strongest leadership teams in Australia and New Zealand with deep craft specialism across creative, media and customer experience.”
“I want to take this opportunity to thank Angela whose resilient, innovative leadership has turned around and transformed the Dentsu ANZ business. She has set a clear strategic blueprint for what success look like in the market and built a strong foundation for the next phase of growth.”
This is now Dentsu’s fourth ANZ CEO in four years, following Tangas, Henry Tajer and Simon Ryan.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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