AD Agencies
Arijit De joins Adfactors PR as director
MUMBAI: Arijit De has taken up a new role as director at Adfactors PR, marking his return to frontline consulting after nearly three decades at the sharp end of communications, media and corporate affairs.
De joins India’s largest communications consulting firm following a four-and-a-half-year stint at Burson, where he served as chief client officer and was part of the India management team, advising top-tier multinational and Indian companies on positioning, narrative, issues and crisis management.
A senior strategic communications professional, De brings deep experience across financial services, conglomerates and global institutions. His career spans leadership roles at Standard Chartered, where he headed corporate communications for India and South Asia and earlier led group media relations in London; Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he was India head of marketing and corporate affairs; and Reliance Capital, where he served as chief communications officer.
Before moving into corporate communications, De built a strong editorial career. As Mumbai bureau chief at Business Standard, he rebuilt the paper’s newsroom and covered India’s largest conglomerates, including the Tata group and the Aditya Birla group. He began his career as a reporter in the mid-1990s, covering sectors from telecoms and energy to FMCG and automobiles.
At Adfactors PR, which advises clients across more than 25 industries in 40 cities and was named one of PRovoke Media’s global “Agencies of the Decade”, De is expected to strengthen senior counsel and leadership across complex mandates.
From newsroom to boardroom and back to advisory, De’s move signals a familiar truth in Indian communications: when reputations are on the line, experience still talks loudest.
AD Agencies
Omnicom doubles synergy target to $1.5 billion, flags more job cuts after IPG deal
Advertising giant targets deeper job cuts and restructuring by mid-2028
NEW YORK: Global advertising group Omnicom Group has sharply escalated its cost-cutting ambitions following its acquisition of Interpublic Group, doubling its annual synergy target to $1.5 billion by mid-2028, according to media reports.
The bulk of the savings, $1 billion a year, will come from labour costs, according to Omnicom’s fourth-quarter earnings presentation. This signals further job cuts, restructuring and the relocation of roles to lower-cost markets.
The tougher stance comes just months after Omnicom announced 4,000 redundancies in December, immediately after closing the IPG transaction.
Presentation slides show labour-related synergies accelerating over the next three years, rising to $645 million in 2026, $920 million in 2027 and $1 billion by 2028. The company said the savings will be delivered through a mix of headcount reductions, offshoring and near-shoring, alongside outsourcing selected back-office functions.
Beyond payroll, Omnicom expects to extract $240 million from real estate consolidation and a further $260 million from IT, procurement and operational efficiencies.
The revised $1.5 billion target is double the $750 million estimate flagged when the IPG deal was announced in late 2024, underscoring a more aggressive integration push than previously signalled.
Chief executive John Wren said Omnicom aims to deliver $900 million of the synergies by the end of 2026, with the full run-rate achieved within 30 months. On the earnings call, Wren and chief financial officer Phil Angelastro said early integration efforts had focused on eliminating duplicated corporate and operational functions.
“Unfortunately, you couldn’t keep two of everything,” Angelastro said, pointing to executive and structural overlaps created by the merger.
The restructuring has also led to a simplification of agency brands and reporting lines. Legacy networks such as DDB Worldwide, FCB and MullenLowe Group have been dismantled as standalone entities, with the group reorganised around nine “connected capabilities”, including Omnicom advertising and Omnicom media.
Omnicom is also expanding a unified resourcing model built around offshore hubs in Colombia, Costa Rica and India, which are expected to take on a larger share of delivery and support functions.
Angelastro said artificial intelligence was not the primary driver of staffing reductions, though automation and AI are being explored to lift productivity.
Omnicom expects total headcount to settle at about 105,000 employees, down from a combined 128,000 at the end of 2024. Around 10,000 roles will fall off payroll through divestments and exits from non-core agency assets.
Investors cheered the expanded savings plan. Omnicom shares jumped more than 15 per cent to close above $80, buoyed by the higher synergy target and a separate $5 billion share buyback programme. Analysts at Bank of America called the moves “key positives”, though flagged the absence of organic growth guidance for 2026.
The New York–headquartered group reported an annual net loss of $54.5 million on revenue of $17.3 billion, reflecting one month of IPG contribution and heavy one-off costs linked to the merger and restructuring.
Omnicom will host an investor day on 12 March, where it is expected to outline further integration milestones and capital allocation priorities.
