AD Agencies
Dentsu Creative announces global leadership roles
Mumbai: Dentsu Creative has announced the key members of its global leadership team. Andrea Terrassa has been named global chief operating officer; Iván Czwan Altobelli, global chief people officer; Julie Scelzo, global clients chief creative officer and Jon Dupuis is global clients president.
Together they are tasked with building and sustaining a culture of creativity, through operational excellence, attracting and retaining world-class talent and ensuring seamless collaboration, to ensure that clients achieve the full potential of modern creativity, Dentsu Creative’s expanded capabilities and bold ambition.
Dentsu International chief creative officer Fred Levron commented, “We are on a journey to design the creative network of the future. Terrassa is without doubt one of the best when it comes to engineering modern structures and processes, while Altobelli is top in the game to onboard the best next generation of talent. In Scelzo and Dupuis we have a unique driving force, who together will deliver the most compelling offer to meet the needs of, and attract more, global clients. They say, “If you don’t like change you will not like irrelevance”, and we are building for change.”
Terrassa has acted as chief operating officer of Dentsu Creative Americas since 2021, where she was instrumental in the organizational and transformation efforts of moving from 11 agency brands to three, and joined dentsu International in 2018 as chief operating officer for 360i. Andrea will work closely with the Global Operations teams across all areas of the business, including media and CXM, led by dentsu International’s global chief operating officer, Nnenna Ilomechina, to help achieve the business’ ambition of offering Horizontal Creativity to clients and being the world’s most integrated creative network.
Terrassa said, “The potential that can be achieved through harnessing the depth and breadth of our capacities, and the incredible talent at Dentsu Creative is immense. Pivotal to achieving this, and more, will be best-in-class operations, and I couldn’t be more excited to provide this to our people and clients. Every day I am impressed by the dynamism and smarts of our incredible community and am so happy to be part of Dentsu Creative’s ambitious journey.”
As global chief people officer for Dentsu Creative, Altobelli will oversee all human resource functions, including an ambitious talent acquisition strategy. He joined dentsu International in 2021 from Accenture Interactive, where he played a key role in delivering its creative and digital agency integration for agencies including Karmarama, Rothco, Droga5, Creative Drive, MXM and PacificLink. Working with Levron, the two have been a driving force behind recent high-profile global hires at Dentsu Creative including Chicago’s chief creative officer, Pedro Perez and Italy’s chief creative officer, Riccardo Fregoso.
Altobelli added, “An agency is nothing without its Talent and I am incredibly proud to be leading the People team here, where attracting, nurturing and championing the best Talent is such a priority across the leadership team. From supporting new joiners, to setting our leaders up for success, we are holding ourselves up to high standards at Dentsu Creative and have big ambitions in motion for our people, business, and culture.”
In her new role, Scelzo will ensure creative excellence for global clients focusing on delivering modern creative ideas that create culture, change society and invent the future. Since 2018 Scelzo has served as global executive creative director for DentsuMB’s American Express business. Before that, Scelzo spent several years as a creative director at Leo Burnett, FCB and Meta. Prior to joining Dentsu, she was the executive creative director of Pandora Music. Using this experience, Julie will look to offer enhanced content marketing, entertainment and IP creative strategies, as well as ensure creativity delivers horizontally for the client, from content to commerce, media to CXM.
Scelzo said, “Since we launched Dentsu Creative in June the energy to live up to our promise to the industry has been amazing. I am so proud to be in the position to set the bar for creative excellence across the network, lead our talented teams, and help our global clients transform their brands and business through the power of modern creativity.”
Dupuis will work with Dentsu Creative’s leadership teams globally to ensure that clients are provided with powerful integrated solutions to achieve bold new executions that connect with the largest possible audience in contextually relevant ways. The key to this will be using data and technology to connect the right global talent around the right global client briefs and build teams that reflect the modern world. Dupuis has been with dentsu since 2017, when he joined as Global managing director for dentsuMB and was promoted to global president and CEO in 2019.
Dupuis said, “While creativity that delivers business impact sits at the heart of our business, a focus on providing clients with a seamless experience globally is the engine at Dentsu Creative. It is with great pleasure that I take on this role and partner with Scelzo to provide success and satisfaction for our global clients.”
AD Agencies
WPP appoints Hephzibah Pathak CEO of WPP Creative India
Ogilvy India chair takes charge of unified creative model in key market
NEW DELHI: WPP has appointed Hephzibah Pathak as chief executive officer of WPP Creative India, putting a local leader at the helm of its newly created creative operating model in one of its most important growth markets.
The move brings clarity to how WPP’s global restructuring will play out in India, weeks after the group unveiled WPP Creative as part of its Elevate28 strategy. The unit sits alongside WPP Media, WPP Production and WPP Enterprise Solutions, and is designed to simplify what the company previously described as an overly complex structure.
Pathak, who continues as executive chairperson of Ogilvy India, will represent all agencies under the WPP Creative umbrella in India. Her role centres on driving integration across brands, expanding capabilities and ensuring clients can tap into the network’s full talent pool without friction.
WPP said Pathak will work closely with agency brand CEOs to “enhance integration, expand capabilities, and ensure seamless client access”, while maintaining the distinct identities of its agencies.
The portfolio under WPP Creative includes leading networks such as VML, Landor, AKQA and Grey, along with Burson and its affiliated firms. Leaders across these agencies will now report into Pathak, even as each brand continues to operate independently within a unified system.
The appointment also formalises a dual-track strategy in India, preserving agency identities while accelerating collaboration. Pathak is expected to work closely with media leadership to align creative and media capabilities, reflecting growing client demand for integrated, multi-market solutions.
WPP Creative global CEO Jon Cook has described the unit as “not an agency” but an operating system that helps creative, design and PR brands work together more effectively. The group has been clear that it is not merging or phasing out legacy agency brands, instead aiming to reduce complexity on the client side.
Pathak brings nearly three decades of experience within the network, having joined in 1997 and held roles ranging from Mumbai office head to chief client officer. She made history in 2024 as the first woman to lead Ogilvy India in its 95-year presence in the country.
Her expanded mandate positions India at the centre of WPP’s Asia-Pacific strategy, with a focus on strengthening brand presence, deepening client relationships and unlocking growth in a fast-evolving market.
The appointment signals WPP’s intent to move beyond the traditional holding company model towards a more integrated, AI-enabled structure. With Pathak now steering WPP Creative India, the group appears set to test whether simpler structures can indeed deliver sharper creative outcomes.
