Ashish Bhasin retires from dentsu, to pursue personal interests

• Ashish Bhasin CEO APAC, and Chairman India, Dentsu International has retired.
• In India, Peter Huijboom will continue his interim, day-to-day leadership of the business with the India leadership team.

After heading the company for over 13 years, Ashish Bhasin, CEO APAC, and Chairman India, Dentsu International has put down his papers to pursue personal interests.

Bhasin said in a statement, "I have had a wonderful 13+ years and have enjoyed leading dentsu India and dentsu APAC. I am very pleased to announce that the company has kindly agreed to my request of early retirement. I have had the honour of leading some of the best people and the best teams in the world. I thank you all for giving me the massive support you always have given. I have also been lucky to have very supportive bosses and colleagues and am thankful to Dentsu for so many things.:

His statement also revealed that he has obtained admission for the Harvard Advanced Management Program and he hopes to be able to complete that next year.

denstu's official statement announcing Bhasin's retirement read, "We will announce a successor in due course. To manage this transition, Simon Jones, CFO APAC & Belli Mathanda, COO APAC will work closely with our global CEO, Wendy Clark, who will have a greater focus on the region during this time supported by the APAC Executive team.

This strong team is well placed to continue the positive transformation underway in the region as we simplify how we operate and bring together our leading capabilities in service of our clients in Creative, Media and CXM to realise our global ambition to be the most integrated agency network in the world.

In India, Peter Huijboom will continue his interim, day-to-day leadership of the business with the India leadership team, while we are in the final stages of our search and appointment of a new CEO in India."

dentsu had announced its transformation and as a result, there have been a number of senior leadership resignations in the last few months. Bhasin's retirement announcement comes months after Anand Bhadkamkar, CEO of Dentsu India also put down his papers. There have been a flurry of resignations since the agency network announced its accelerated transformation process.