MAM
Publicis Media restructures organisation
MUMBAI Publicis Media CEO Steve King has unveiled structure and leadership appointments for the organization. “We are driven to get to the future first,” said King. “Publicis Media is a fresh opportunity to simplify our organisation, invent more modern approaches to gain efficiency, introduce structures for greater collaboration and effectiveness, and drive new levels of scale and client value.”
“The new Publicis Media imagined by Steve King is fully equipped to fit the future and best serve our clients,” Publicis Groupe chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy endorsed, “A leaner and simpler structure will bring more value to our clients and will further accelerate our growth.”
Publicis Media’s structure will cover Top 20 markets, organised by three regions and led by Regional CEO for the Americas Tim Jones, Regional CEO for EMEA Iain Jacob, and Regional CEO for APAC, Gerry Boyle.
At a global management level, Adrian Sayliss will become CFO for Publicis Media, Séverine Charbon will become the Chief Talent Officer for Publicis Media, and John Sheehy will oversee Global Clients for Publicis Media.
Publicis Media will consolidate its six global agency brands: Starcom, Mediavest, Spark, Zenith, Optimedia and Blue 449 into four global agency brands namely Starcom, Zenith, Mediavest | Spark and Optimedia | Blue 449. Starcom and Zenith will each continue to operate as global agency brands while Mediavest | Spark will be a third large global agency brand and Optimedia | Blue 449 will be brought together to form a powerful global challenger brand.
Each agency will be led by a Global Brand President with Lisa Donohue as Global Brand President for Starcom, Vittorio Bonori as Global Brand President for Zenith, Brian Terkelsen as Global Brand President for Mediavest | Spark, and Andras Vigh as Global Brand President for Optimedia | Blue 449. These
Global Brand Presidents will be responsible for leading clients, driving growth and enabling best work.
Additionally, there will be four US CEOs with Chris Boothe becoming CEO of Mediavest | Spark,
Dave Ehlers of Optimedia | Blue 449, Lou Rossi continuing at Zenith and Lisa Donohue continuing as US CEO for Starcom until a successor is named. All US brand leadership will report into Tim Jones, CEO of Americas.
Dave Penski will become Chief Investment Officer for Publicis Media in the U.S. overseeing all media investment and media vendor partnerships. He reports to Jones. Publicis Media’s U.S. consolidated investment power, estimated at $39 Billion and 33% market share, makes Publicis Media the largest media buying entity in the U.S., according to RECMA’s most recent Overall Activity Ranking Report.
Powering Publicis Media will be seven centralised ‘Global Practices’ that standardise approaches, scale quickly and deliver connectivity, consistency, that span geography, agency brands and clients.
These Global Practices will be:
• Data, Technology & Innovation led by Stephan Beringer
• Content led by Belinda Rowe
• Trading & Buying led by Simon Pardon
• Performance led by Michael Kahn
• Business Development & Communications led by Lauren Hanrahan
• Business Transformation led by Richard Hartell
• Analytics, Research & Insight led by Steve Simpson
In this new model, the agency network names of Starcom Mediavest Group and ZenithOptimedia Group are retired to better enable a flatter organisational structure. Publicis Media will deliver client value through combined scale and capabilities of our media agency brands.
VivaKi capabilities will be fully integrated into Publicis Media’s Global Practice model. Performics will remain Publicis Media’s global performance marketing brand and scale across all agency brands.
The reorganisation of Publicis Groupe’s media capabilities into a Publicis Media hub is part of Publicis Groupe’s transformation efforts previously announced. Publicis Groupe is organised into four Solutions hubs—Publicis Communications led by Arthur Sadoun, Publicis Media led by Steve King, Publicis.Sapient led by Alan Herrick and Publicis Health led by Nick Colucci—which are connected through a Chief Revenue Officer organization, led by Laura Desmond, which will deliver client satisfaction across Publicis Groupe’s entire range of services.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
