GroupM has gone for a major restructuring exercise. The WPP-owned media agency has dissolved its APAC-level management and will have four sub-regional markets reporting directly to the global leadership, as per multiple reports.
Ashutosh Srivastava, the APAC chief executive officer, will now be taking up other roles in WPP.
According to the reports, GroupM will now have four market clusters in the region. Prasanth Kumar will lead South Asia. Greater China and North Asia (Korea and Japan) will be helmed by Patrick Xu. Southeast Asia will be under Himanshu Shekhar and Australia and New Zealand under Aimee Buchanan.
With this move, the agency is attempting to simplify its business structure. This comes at a time when marketers across markets are looking for localised services.
Last year, GroupM announced its plans to merge the operations of MediaCom and Essence. Post its merger this year, the agency is now rebranded as EssenceMediacom. This will bolster GroupM’s digital and performance credentials. GroupM now has three flagship agencies—EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker.