Dentsu Aegis management shake-up continues: Mitchells & Vizeum CEO Kenny Stewart departs
Stewart: set to depart Dentsu Aegis
New Dentsu Aegis CEO Simon Ryan is continuing to put his stamp on Australia’s second-largest advertising holding group, confirming Kenny Stewart, CEO of media agencies Dentsu Mitchell and Vizeum, is departing the business.
Mumbrella can reveal the move is part of a broader shake up that sees Adrian Roeling national managing director of Dentsu Mitchell and Travis Day national managing director of Vizeum formally take the reins of their respective media agencies, and comes as the holding group moves to streamline its public relations businesses.
As part of these wider changes, managing director of Haystac and Spark Communications, Patrick O’Beirne also resigned and it is also understood there have been other redundancies, including chief innovation and marketing officer, David Stevenson.
“I’d like to thank Kenny for his contribution over the years,” Simon Ryan told Mumbrella. “He is a good guy and we wish him all the best for the future.
“The changes made are all in order to streamline our core service divisions and gear the business to align to its priorities – being a high-performing talent mantra, deep-centralised client specialisation, and alignment to the Dentsu Aegis Network local and global ambitions.”
In total it is understood there have been around 15 redundancies and departures across the holding group’s media, sports rights, finance, IT and services functions.
AdNews reported last week that five positions had been made redundant at Dentsu Mitchell, while it is understood that Stewart’s position was eliminated due to a view that the two media agencies did not need a joint CEO.
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Stewart has held senior roles in the Aegis group since 2010 and prior to that held roles as managing director of Starcom Mediavest Group and general manager of Wunderman.
In his most recent role, Stewart helped oversee the transition of clients to Carat from Mitchells, which was at the time Australia’s largest media agency, to an Australian brand-focused media agency.
Under the new structure Roeling and Day will report directly to Simon Ryan.
Ryan: streamlining the agency’s core service divisions.
As Mumbrella reported last month, the group is also looking for a new CEO for Australia’s second largest media agency Carat.
“I’ve been contacted by many people for the role and we have shortlisted the candidates,” said Ryan. We are in no hurry, as we have a great executive leadership team at Carat and I’m still there to support them all the way”.
According to the most recent RECMA figures, Dentsu Mitchell had client billings of $816m, while Vizeum had billings of $126m. The full Dentsu Aegis group has total billings of $2.1bn.
Nic Christensen
He is not messing around
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When a senior leader at Dentsu Aegis calls you a “good guy”, look for the red laser dot on your forehead or chest, cause the bullet is on its way.
This network is guilty of treating its people in the most appalling ways. I would be ashamed to carry their business card.
Everyone seems to be a fall guy – which makes you wonder why the boss isn’t accountable for this.
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A logical move by Mr.Ryan especially for Dentsu Mitchells but surely the MD of VIzeum reports to a regional CEO, Kristian Barnes. Correct?
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Kenny and Stephenson: two of the best I once worked with and still to this day admire.
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