Currently, Wunderman Thomspon is headed by Shamsuddin Jasani, who is designated as CEO, WT South Asia. VMLY&R is led by Saurabh Saksena, CEO of VMLY&R India shows Opportunities for Media Planners.
On Tuesday, WPP announced the merger of Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R to create VML.
While the global advertising network introduced Jon Cook as VML’s Global CEO and Mel Edwards as VML’s Global President, it has yet to decide on its leadership in India.
In response, WPP conveyed, “The new united VML will be operational from January 1, 2024, and we are working through all local market leadership structures over the coming weeks. We will share the India leadership structure with you when finalised.”
Nevertheless, industry experts remain skeptical that WPP has not yet determined the leadership for India. Many experts told that India is one of the largest offices worldwide, and it is challenging to believe that such a significant undertaking would leave the India leadership decision pending.
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Presently, Shamsuddin Jasani, designated as CEO, WT South Asia, heads Wunderman Thompson. Saurabh Saksena is the CEO of VMLY&R India.
While the Chief Creative Officer at Wunderman Thompson is Senthil Kumar, Mukund Olety is VMLY&R’s CCO.
Although Wunderman Thompson India is a larger agency, it is expected that, due to the discontinuation of the WT brand, VMLY&R’s leadership will be given priority over WT leadership to lead the agency in India, mirroring the global leadership structure announced for the combined entity VML.
In 2018, when J. Walter Thompson merged with Wunderman, Mel Edwards, then the global CEO of Wunderman, assumed the role of Global CEO of Wunderman Thompson. The discontinuation of the JWT brand was seen as a strategic move to present the company as more digitally focused and appealing to new-age brands.
In the same year as the JWT merger with Wunderman, WPP merged VML and Y&R (Young & Rubicam) to create VMLY&R. Jon Cook, then the Global CEO of VML, was appointed the Global Chief Executive Officer of VMLY&R.
In the past, former WPP head Martin Sorrell openly criticised the extensive agency mergers within WPP, expressing concerns that senior management might be disconnected from the lower-level operations.
