Dentsu’s changing of the guard continues as new creative leadership team revealed

Alongside chief creative officer Fred Levron, hired back in 2021, the company has confirmed the appointment of Andrea Terrassa as global chief operating officer (a promotion from her role as chief operating officer of Dentsu Creative in the Americas). Iván Czwan Altobelli, who joined in 2021 from Accenture Song, has been appointed global chief people officer, while Julie Scelzo and Jon Dupuis take on respective briefs as global clients chief creative officer and global clients president.

Dentsu Creative was created from a merger of Dentsu’s sprawling creative agency network, bringing a staff of 9,000 employees together under a single umbrella for the first time. That move, helmed by Levron and Clark, was announced at Cannes Lions in June.

“We are on a journey to design the creative network of the future,” said Levron. “Andrea is without doubt one of the best when it comes to engineering modern structures and processes, while Iván is top in the game to onboard the best next generation of talent. In Julie and Jon we have unique driving force, who together will deliver the most compelling offer to meet the needs of, and attract more, global clients. They say, ’If you don’t like change you will not like irrelevance’, and we are building for change.”

The creative division has been a recruitment focus for the Japanese holding group – respected British creative director Ete Davies was brought on board after leaving Engine, and the company also recently hired Pedro Perez and Riccardo Fregoso to lead its creative efforts in Chicago and Italy.

Altobelli said the agency had “big ambitions” to compete for industry talent. “An agency is nothing without its talent and I am incredibly proud to be leading the people team here, where attracting, nurturing and championing the best talent is such a priority across the leadership team. From supporting new joiners to setting our leaders up for success, we are holding ourselves up to high standards at Dentsu Creative and have big ambitions in motion for our people, business and culture.”

The hires come at an interesting moment for the ad giant. In September it was revealed that Dentsu International boss Wendy Clark would be leaving the business at the end of the year – despite leading the group through a wide-ranging restructuring project.

Clark, perhaps the company’s highest-profile executive, hasn’t yet given a reason for her exit. Her brief, which saw her lead the group’s businesses outside Japan, is set to default to group-wide chief executive officer Hiroshi Igarashi, who will run each of the company’s four regions from Tokyo.