Dentsu Creative and Global Chief Creative Officer Fred Levron Agree to Part Ways

Less than a year ago, Dentsu revealed the final phase of its massive companywide reorganization, slimming down its creative capabilities to just one brand—Dentsu Creative. Behind the reorg stood two key leaders, CEO Wendy Clark and global chief creative officer Fred Levron.

Both leaders have now departed the holding company. Clark announced she was leaving Dentsu last summer, while Levron and Dentsu mutually agreed to part ways today, according to a company statement. The agency is in the process of finalizing a succession plan to oversee Dentsu Creative in international markets.

Levron’s departure comes five months after Dentsu announced it was consolidating its Japanese and global leadership teams to form one single leadership group. As part of those changes, Hiroshi Igarashi became the global CEO of the holding company while Levron remained global CCO, with the exception of the Japanese market.

“During his tenure as dentsu’s global chief creative officer (excluding Japan), Fred developed and launched Dentsu Creative to the market, bringing together Dentsu’s global creative efforts under one roof, and led the organization to a very successful showing at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity,” the company said in a statement. “Creative remains a critical cornerstone of our strategic vision for Dentsu. We thank Fred for his energy and commitment to the transformation of Dentsu Creative and wish him success in his next challenge.”

Since the creation of Dentsu Creative, the agency has quickly hired chief creatives across a number of offices under Levron. The agency brought in Rafael Rizuto from BBH US to serve as Dentsu Creative CCO for the U.S. Hispanic LATAM markets; Pedro Pérez from Energy BBDO as Chicago CCO; Riccardo Fregoso from Publicis Italy as Italy CCO.

In addition, the agency hired former global COO and partner at Gut, Paulo Fogaca, as its U.S. CEO to solidify Dentsu Creative’s vision, strategy and positioning for the U.S.. He reported directly to Levron and Jacki Kelley, Dentsu Americas CEO.

Levron’s tenure at Dentsu

Dentsu brought Levron into the organization from FCB in November 2021 to be one of key architects of the reorganization. In his first eight months, Clark and Levron pieced together the new look Dentsu, revealing at Cannes last summer the consolidated Dentsu Creative, which merged DentsuMB with 360i and Isobar. Clark and Levron’s goal was to bring “horizontal creativity” across its various service lines, including creativity, media and CRM.

Levron’s big pitch creatively was what he called “modern creativity,” blending together three core values: creating culture, changing society and inventing the future. He also instituted a new creative scale that allowed the agency to score work from across the globe using the same standards.

During the consolidation of Dentsu last summer, a number of sources within the holding company as well as clients expressed frustration to Adweek about how the reorganization was conducted. Last August, a source told Adweek that Dentsu had been working on the reorg for more than a year when Levron retooled the efforts. The result was friction among U.S. leaders and the global leadership team as many employees weren’t clear on their roles moving forward when Dentsu Creative was announced in June 2022.

Since Adweek’s story ran in September, a number of sources—including several Adweek spoke with for that story—have expressed that much of that uncertainty has been alleviated within the organization. Several high level executives have told Adweek that the U.S. feels much more aligned on the vision of Dentsu Creative and how it fits in within the wider organization.

Sources have also told Adweek that communication between teams as well as leadership’s messaging to employees have improved in 2023.

Since the reorganization was announced, Dentsu Creative has won several accounts, including the Illinois Lottery and more notably Apple TV+ work. According to the agency, clients have responded well to its horizontal creativity strategy as in the U.S. 53% of dentsu’s top 100 clients work with at least two of the network’s three core service disciplines—creative, media and CXM. Across the Americas region, which includes the U.S. Toronto and LATAM, it’s 58%.