GroupM’s leadership reorg gets an assist from a McKinsey exec

Although one internal executive insists it’s not the beginning of the end of the individual brand names within GroupM — Mindshare, Wavemaker and EssenceMediacom — the moves indicate a simplification that more easily enables client-centric mini-shops to get crafted where needed, sometimes across agency brands. GroupM declined to comment on the record.

Specifically, Mindshare’s global CEO Adam Gerhart was named GroupM’s global chief client officer, charged with overseeing major accounts and client engagement strategy across all agencies globally, and coordinating parent company WPP. 

Toby Jenner, global CEO of Wavemaker, becomes global chief business officer, heading up cross-WPP integration projects while steering growth and business development.

And Mark Patterson, who’s been global COO, now moves over to global president, markets and business operations, in charge of expanding APAC and LATAM markets and expanding offshore capabilities in entertainment and sports. 

He’s being replaced as global COO by McKinsey executive Emily Del Greco, who starts in February and naturally will report to GroupM’s global CEO Brian Lesser, ultimately the architect of these changes. Del Greco will be charged with executing a lot of the operational tweaks and strategic adjustments, while also overseeing the activation and Investment practices.

(It should be noted that Nick Lawson, the global CEO of EssenceMediacom, left the company in December.)

A GroupM source wouldn’t say if Del Greco or McKinsey was already working with GroupM before her hire. Regardless, one observer believes the hire and the consolidation is a smart move. “The news is really positive for GroupM, not only by bringing Emily aboard but also because it reduces the overhead associated with the individual brands and hopefully helps support more centralized decision-making,” noted analyst Brian Wieser, of Madison & Wall.

It can’t be coincidence that this is also happening within weeks of Omnicom acquiring IPG and Publicis merging its creative brands into a centralized operation. The GroupM source, who declined to speak for attribution, said it would be going too far to read this as the beginnings of the collapse of brand names — as WPP has done with several of its creative agencies over the years.

“The agencies are all about servicing their clients and really owning the client context and the client strategy,” said the source. “What we’ve been doing is building standardized activation practices and a technology platform that those teams customize and use for each client. That’s just downstream of a world two years ago where each agency had their own unique technology stack and was competing as an individual business.”

But Forrester’s vp and principal agency analyst Jay Pattisall does see a similar effort at consolidation along similar lines to rival holdcos. 

“Its likely a reaction to both Publicis Media and Omnicom Media Group’s success, as both go to market for media at the holding company level,” said Pattisall. “You can also see this strategy play out in creative within VML, the merger of Leo Burnett and Publicis Worldwide, as well as the creation of Omnicom Advertising Group. These moves, including GroupM’s centralization play, illustrate how agencies are evolving to meet marketer’s needs for more holistic marketing solutions services by teams of specialists.”

Evolving and simplifying their offering. But as the GroupM source noted, some of these agency brands have strength in various regions across the globe — which has something to do with why they haven’t disappeared.

Yet.