Dentsu/Aegis is on a roll (it recently won Microsoft’s $2bn media business) and the Aegis bit (bought by Dentsu for $5bn in March last year) seems to be making the running as the enlarged holding company challenges the likes of Omnicom and WPP worldwide.
Now the company has appointed Tray De Groose (left), formerly CEO of its biggest media agency Carat in the UK, to be Dentsu/Aegis’s first UK CEO. She will report to Northern Europe boss Rob Horler who, in turn, reports to big boss Jerry Buhlmann.
De Groose, a senior marketer at Stella Artois before moving to media agencies, will oversee Carat, iProspect, Isobar, creative agency Mcgarrybowen, Posterscope and Vizeum in the UK.
She has a job on her hands. Carat and digital agency Isobar seem to be motoring nicely but Mcgarrybowen hasn’t taken the UK by storm in its brief spell over here although it has produced some nice work for Honda. Out of home specialist Posterscope, which accounts for a big chunk of Aegis profits, has been blitzed by Eric Newnham’s new Omnicom-backed contender Talon.
