Dentsu Group doubles down on new India leadership to offset media client losses in H1FY23

Despite losing clients from the media business in H1FY23, Dentsu Group president and CEO Hiroshi Igarashi has expressed faith in the new Dentsu India leadership of Anita Kotwani (media), and CEO Harsha Razdan.

They have “led to a radical shift towards more effective collaboration and a focus on client centricity. Recent client wins demonstrate a return to competitiveness,” remarks Igarashi during Dentsu Group’s announcement of its Q2FY23 results.

The ad giant’s India arm lost major clients Maruti Suzuki and Reckitt to WPP’s GroupM and Wavemaker respectively, in 2023.

The impact of such high-profile media client losses in India, and China seeing market deflation resulting in reduced spend in cyclical industries where Dentsu has greater client exposure, led to Dentsu APAC (excluding Japan) reporting a -7.0% organic revenue loss in the quarter ended June 2023.

The Group reported a revenue slide of 0.1% year-on-year, with an organic decline of -4.7%, against "strong prior-year comparables".

Kotwani - she used to head Carat in India - was promoted, and tasked to head media for Dentsu India in March 2023. And in the same period, the ad network announced Harsha Razdan as India CEO.

Along with these senior leadership announcements, Dentsu India hired Jose Leon as CEO of Dentsu X, Sanchayeeta Verma to lead Carat India as CEO, and it rehired Narayan Devanathan, in a consulting role, as group chief strategic advisor.

These appointments come after a few tumultuous years for Dentsu India that saw its entire leadership team leave the network.