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Djaba is over and up in another Publicis Groupe shuffle

Publicis Groupe has promoted Magnus Djaba, CEO of its UK creative agencies, to chief client officer. When he takes up the group’s top global client role, Annette King, CEO of Publicis Groupe UK (and recently made chair of the BBH global board), will take over responsibility for the creative agencies.

Publicis has developed a knack of maximising the impact of its best talent across the group: as well as Djaba, there’s Annette King, and fellow Brit Steve King who is now global COO after three decades in media. It’s clearly being felt in the results, with an impressive 11.2% organic growth in the third quarter of this year, and the recent media hot streak will only add to the numbers.

Let’s hope that Publicis can continue to attract top talent at agency level, otherwise there won’t be too many people left to get the work done. Chaka Sobhani, who was promoted from UK to global chief creative officer at Leo Burnett earlier this year, is also working her way into the upper echelons of the group.

Djaba replaces Ros King, who joined from Lloyds Banking Group in 2019 and will now focus internally on leadership development and coaching at Publicis.

In the new role, Djaba will replace Ros King on the Groupe’s management committee. He will push the Power of One and take responsibility for “coordinating and ensuring seamless access to Publicis Groupe’s best-in-class capabilities in data, creativity, media and technology for all of its global clients.”

Arthur Sadoun, chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, said: “Magnus is an outstanding leader, with a deep understanding of our clients’ business needs. With our global client organisation, he will be instrumental as we go faster and deeper in delivering tailor-made solutions to our clients across marketing services and business transformation, to help them win in a platform world.”

Djaba said: “The pandemic has in many ways accelerated the future on its journey towards us, and has undoubtedly increased the opportunities and responsibilities of businesses and brands in the platform world in which we operate. There’s no better time to partner with our clients to help them deliver on the possibilities that lie ahead. Our pledge is to help our clients win in a platform world – that’s what I’m here to do.”

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