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Kathleen Saxton is to step down as chief advertising and marketing officer of Omnicom—the second departure from the holding firm’s international management crew to emerge this week.
Omnicom recruited Saxton simply over a yr in the past to be its first CMO and increase its model. She is going to proceed working for the 74,000-strong company group for an extra 4 months and can go away in April 2024.
Her departure follows information that Alex Hesz, one other Briton, was leaving as chief technique officer, after little greater than a yr in his international position.
Saxton stated she and John Wren, the long-serving chief govt of Omnicom, had agreed for her to be “launched”, in line with an e-mail that she wrote to senior company leaders inside the group.
She praised Omnicom as a “superb” firm however her inside observe instructed there was a distinction of opinion over company imaginative and prescient.
“Generally in life, timing and ambition within the company world doesn’t at all times align with our private imaginative and prescient and so John and I’ve agreed, with pragmatism and style, that I be launched later subsequent yr to expertise a brand new journey,” Saxton wrote.
Omnicom declined to remark to Marketing campaign. Saxton wouldn’t remark and referred inquiries to Omnicom.
The exits of Saxton and Hesz, who has stated he’s leaving to give attention to the upcoming UK basic election, will increase questions on whether or not Omnicom is dedicated to growing a major management layer on the holding firm stage.
Omnicom beforehand created a collection of recent job roles on the holdco stage, beginning with the promotion of Daryl Simm to chief working officer in October 2021, as a part of a push to win and retain extra giant shopper accounts throughout the total spectrum of company capabilities.
Wren and Simm subsequently appointed Saxton because the group’s first CMO, Hesz as its first CSO and Andrea Lennon as its first chief shopper officer within the autumn of 2022.
Seen presence
Saxton is a widely known determine in UK and international promoting and was a visual presence at this yr’s Cannes Lions, the largest annual occasion within the business calendar, in June.
Omnicom elevated its funding in Cannes by creating its personal purpose-built area, Omnicom Cove, to host purchasers and workers. It received probably the most inventive firm of the yr award on the competition.
Saxton beforehand based and ran The Lighthouse Firm, an govt search firm, for greater than a decade, earlier than shutting it in summer season 2020 due to the pandemic.
She went on to be EMEA managing director of MediaLink, the US-based consulting and govt search agency, for 2 years, earlier than being headhunted by Omnicom in October 2022.
She moved from London to New York when she took the CMO position.
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