Dentsu India consolidates eight agencies under dentsu Creative, brings digital and PR capabilities together; Amit Wadhwa to lead the new structure as CEO

• Narayan Devanathan is now President - Strategy & Integration for dentsu India & Head - Strategy & Consulting, APAC.
• Shamsuddin Jasani & Sidharth Rao also get additional roles.

On the back of its global organisational redesign, dentsu international has created a new structure for its creative service line in India. The restructure will bring together some of India’s best agencies along with their digital & PR capabilities - all from the house of dentsu - under one umbrella with an aim to provide a more collaborative and aligned offering to clients. The brands that will come together as part of this redesign as dentsu Creative include Dentsu Webchutney, Taproot Dentsu, WATConsult, Perfect Relations, Isobar, Dentsu One, Dentsu India and Dentsu Impact.

With the eventual consolidation under the two strong global brands - dentsumcgarrybowen (dentsuMB) and Isobar, dentsu Creative will provide digital-native, brand-led, customer-centric, creative, and strategic solutions to clients, effortlessly.

In India, the dentsu Creative service line will be led by Amit Wadhwa as its chief executive officer (CEO). Amit will be responsible for the integration, co-ordination, and implementation of the overall strategy for dentsu Creative in the market. He will lead the dentsu India creative service line leadership team, reporting into Anand Bhadkamkar and the regional dentsu Creative leadership.

Sidharth Rao, in addition to his current responsibilities, will now also be in charge of the brand dentsuMB Group in India as its CEO. He will work with the leadership team on dentsuMB’s brand strategy for the market. Shamsuddin Jasani, who continues to oversee the Isobar brand in South Asia as its Managing Director (MD), will also take on an additional role at dentsu Creative. He will now work with the regional and global leadership teams to support the Isobar practice area and will work closely with the Isobar Global leadership team on the same.

Speaking on the new development, Anand Bhadkamkar, CEO India said, “This global restructure is about consolidation of capabilities across our brands and businesses with an aim to bring the best of our services to our clients and provide those specialisms without any hassles. The idea is to ultimately stand true to our #OneDentsu strategy and thus, transform into a sharper and leaner business partner to brands. The changes in the India leadership team only reflects a step ahead in bolstering and scaling up our market ambitions. Amit, Sid and Shams are amongst the strongest creative leaders not just within dentsu but across industry; and with the kind of experience and knowledge backing them, I am certain that they will steer dentsu towards excellence not just in India but beyond.”

The network has elevated Narayan Devanathan as President - Strategy & Integration for India, in addition to his current role as CEO, dentsu Solutions. This new role is designed to support and achieve dentsu’s strategic objectives by defining, implementing, and driving growth and other vital initiatives for the market. He will continue to report into Anand Bhadkamkar for his additional responsibility as part of the India market leadership team. Meanwhile, Narayan will now also don a regional hat as APAC Head for the dentsu Creative Strategy & Consulting practice.

“Narayan has been instrumental in driving integration across our units and, as part of the South Asia integration initiatives, he will be supporting the Sri Lanka team in strategy and integration across the two markets. He will now be moving away from his current additional role as Chairperson, Creative Service Line for India and will take up a regional leadership role as APAC Lead - Strategy & Consulting Practice in the creative service line. In this role, he will be working with the Regional and Global leadership teams within the creative service line to help develop the area of Strategy & Consulting Practice in the APAC region,” Anand added.