Dentsu Promotes Ashish Bhasin In APAC Role, Anand Bhadkamkar Named India CEO

Dentsu Aegis Network, the India unit of Japanese advertising giant, announced the promotion of Ashish Bhasin as Asia Pacific (APAC) chief executive effective immediately. The newly created role will focus on accelerating the growth while delivering greater operational rigour and leadership excellence across the region.

An advertising veteran with over three decades of experience, Bhasin becomes first Indian leader to join Dentsu’s global executive team. Based in Singapore, he will be reporting into Takaki Hibino, executive chairman, Dentsu Aegis Network APAC and will continue to maintain his role as chairman, Dentsu Aegis Network India.

He was promoted as Greater South CEO in March last year in which he was overseeing India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Myanmar. Singapore will become part of the Greater South cluster and Bhasin will continue to oversee it until the agency finds a successor.

“Ashish’s appointment is critical for the region enabling the markets to focus on client needs and growth opportunities while delivering operational rigor for the business. He was a clear candidate from the start with a proven track record of delivering long-term and consistent growth. Under his leadership, the business in India is now the second largest advertising and media organisation by revenue in the market. His long-term vision coupled with his acumen for identifying an opportunity is one of the best in the business, and I am delighted he will join me in leading the business in APAC,” said Hibino in a statement.

This move further cements the recently announced cluster structure of Dentsu which includes Greater North, Greater South and ANZ (Australia and New Zealand) in APAC, giving the markets and their leadership teams greater focus on identifying and moving into key growth opportunities.

Meanwhile, Anand Bhadkamkar, chief operating officer (COO) and chief financial officer (CFO) Greater South, has been promoted to CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network India. He will continue to report to Bhasin.

“APAC is an extremely important market for any company because that’s where the growth is coming from. Countries such as India and China with large population are driving this growth. I’m very happy to have the opportunity to become a part of the global executive team. As far as India is concerned, I’ll continue to be the chairman of DAN in India. I anticipate that I’ll spend a week a month in the country available to our clients here and to act as a support to our new India CEO, Anand. I’m just taking an additional responsibility but I will no longer be involved in the day-to-day operations of the network,” said Bhasin in a telephonic conversation with Mint.

Bhadkamkar on his new role said that he’s looking forward to embark upon a new chapter in his career and work with Bhasin as the chairman of India to continue building DAN into the country’s most innovative, future-proofed market-leading network. “Our one P&L philosophy and leadership status in digital sets us up in the best position versus our competitors,” he added.

In addition to the development, Dentsu also announced two other key promotions. Masaya Nakamura, deputy chairman and chief growth officer, APAC has been taken a new role as CEO, global client solutions, Dentsu Aegis Network, based in Tokyo.

Prakash Kamdar, chief executive of Dentsu’s digital agency Isobar Singapore has been promoted to CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network Singapore.―Livemint