Dentsu Aegis elevates Ashish Bhasin as CEO APAC
After leading the business in India, making it the second largest advertising and media organisation by revenue in the market, Ashish Bhasin will now head the entire APAC cluster as CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) Asia Pacific. Bhasin will be based in Singapore and work on enabling the markets, focusing on client needs and growth opportunities while delivering operational rigor for the business. However, he will continue to maintain his role as chairman of DAN India.
Thrilled to take on the new role Bhasin said, “There is never a more exciting time to be in this business; our competitive landscape is becoming more complex and fragmented while our clients are crying out for long-term vision and simplicity.”
“We are in a unique position to build propositions around our client needs, and I look forward to this next chapter in the transformation journey of this region,” he added.
Before promoting Bhasin as CEO for APAC business, he was given the responsibility to head Dentsu Aegis Network Greater South in a reorganization that was announced earlier this year. The reorganization had brought the number of regional clusters down from five to three. As Greater South CEO Bhasin was overseeing India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Myanmar. Now, even Singapore will become part of the Greater South cluster and he will continue to oversee the Greater South cluster until a successor is appointed.
The search for CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network India, however, stops as Anand Bhadkamkar, chief operating officer (COO) and chief financial officer (CFO) Greater South, gets promoted to that role. Further, Isobar Singapore CEO Prakash Kamdar has been promoted to CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Singapore.
Dentsu Aegis Network Singapore previously had been a distinct entity and was headed by Deputy Chairman and Chief Growth Officer for Asia-Pacific, Masaya Nakamura. Nakamura will now return to Tokyo in a new role as CEO of global client solutions. But will remain on the global and Asia-Pacific executive board.
With this business restructuring and shifts in roles and responsibilities, Dentsu Aegis Network moves ahead in the journey of ensuring a long-term, and sustainable growth for their business.
So far, the growth of the network has been on the back of several significant mergers and acquisitions. Bhasin believes the firm has a head-start compared to the competition, who are struggling with legacy structures and silos. Further, by being digitally ahead, Dentsu Aegis Network strives to always have a distinct advantage, in the digital era.
But keeping up with the rapid pace of disruption could be challenging for Dentsu Aegis Network as well. How the firm maintains its leadership status in digital, it claims to have, is to look forward to.