Publicis Groupe combines Leo Burnett and Publicis Worldwide globally
Publicis Groupe is the latest holdco to consolidate its agencies, globally merging Leo Burnett and Publicis Worldwide.
Designed to “drive exponential creativity in the age of AI”, the combined agency – named Leo – will drive solutions by combining Leo Burnett’s brand of ‘humankind’ with Publicis Worldwide’s expertise in transformation to lead the change and the ‘Power of One’.
Mumbrella understands there is no immediate impact to the agencies locally. The Publicis Worldwide brand name will remain in Australia, and there will be no changes to the general operations or structure of Leo Burnett – only a name change to Leo.
Leo’s global leadership team. (L-R): Carla Serrano, Marco Venturelli, Agathe Bousquet, Gareth Goodall
Globally, the new entity will have a creative force of 15,000 — 8,000 from Leo Burnett and 7,000 from Publicis Worldwide — across 90 countries.
It will be led by co-presidents Marco Venturelli and Agathe Bousquet, and chief strategy officer Gareth Goodall. Meanwhile, Andrew Bruce, CEO of Publicis Groupe Canada, will also take on the additional role of chairman, Leo North America.
As part of the change, the Leo Burnett logo has been redesigned to reflect the new name.
Publicis Groupe’s CEO, Arthur Sadoun, said in today’s world, creative efficiency is about nurturing big ideas from creative minds to impact clients’ businesses, but increasingly it is about more collaboration and access to capabilities.
“That’s exactly what Leo stands for,” he said. “By unifying the spirit and talent of these global creative communities, Leo will be bigger, stronger and on more doors than ever.”
Venturelli echoed his point, adding: “We’ve never had so many tools to better understand people and connect with them. Nevertheless creativity still is, and forever will be a messy human process. Leo will be a true global community of creative and strategic talents, connected together for a more human way of creating at scale.”
Bousquet said Leo will have a global spirit that will live and breathe at the local level, “with outstanding creative and strategic talent turbocharged by best-in-class data and technology through our country model, to create truly bespoke models for its clients”.
The Leo ‘constellation’ joins Publicis Groupe’s global creative roster alongside Saatchi & Saatchi, LePub, BBH, Fallon, The Community, and Le Truc.
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Lauren McNamara was the associate editor at Mumbrella. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS. She left Mumbrella in August 2025.
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