Dentsu’s Kartik Iyer retires, Saagar Sethi named CBO for South Asia

GURUGRAM: Dentsu has pulled off a tidy changing of the guard in South Asia. Kartik Iyer retires as chief operating officer, South Asia, effective August 17, and Saagar Sethi moves up to chief business officer, South Asia, from September 1. It is the kind of succession that looks planned rather than forced, and that alone should reassure clients watching the agency’s leadership bench.

Iyer leaves with his reputation intact. Over his tenure he helped tighten dentsu’s operating capabilities, delivery frameworks and operational discipline, all while backing the group’s broader transformation agenda. He is not disappearing either, staying on to advise the organisation in his new capacity. Harsha Razdan, chief executive officer, South Asia, dentsu, called him a steady hand through demanding years for the industry, which is about as good a send off as any operations chief could ask for.

Sethi’s brief is where this gets interesting. He inherits an expanded portfolio covering investment and trading, media planning and operations, performance practice and operational excellence, effectively bringing four functions that used to sit apart under a single command. The logic is straightforward: tighter integration between investment, planning, performance and delivery should mean fewer handoffs and faster decisions for clients. Sethi will report to Sujit Vaidya, chief financial officer, with a matrix line to Ajay Gupte, chief operating officer, so the guardrails are clear even as the remit widens.

Sethi is not a newcomer being tested. He joined dentsu in 2022 and has already run the investment and trading business, arriving with more than two decades across media, commercial strategy, transformation, procurement and business operations. Stints at LG Electronics and Ernst & Young, working on transformation and sourcing across domestic and international markets, give him a operator’s eye that should serve a job this broad rather well.

Razdan’s framing of the move is the sharpest part of the story. Brands, he said, are being pushed to show business outcomes, and the gap between a media decision and a commercial result has never been narrower. Consolidating investment, planning, performance and operational excellence under Sethi is dentsu’s answer to that gap, and on paper it is a sensible one. A single leader accountable for the full chain from media buy to business result gives clients less to chase and dentsu less room to hide. Whether the integration delivers on that promise will be the thing to watch, but the structure at least gives it a fair shot.