Yamaguchi joined BBH in April last year after spending 28 years of his career with Dentsu.
Simon Sherwood, chief operating officer of BBH Group, told Media: “Dentsu has a unique working culture with Kat [Yamaguchi] joined us with ingrained ways of doing things. We couldn’t agree on how to take the business forward and the timeframe involved. We need to get our Japanese business going faster, and Kat felt we were asking too much.”
Simon Sherwood, chief operating officer of BBH Group, told Media: “Dentsu has a unique working culture with Kat [Yamaguchi] joined us with ingrained ways of doing things. We couldn’t agree on how to take the business forward and the timeframe involved. We need to get our Japanese business going faster, and Kat felt we were asking too much.”
Agency MD Hoon Kim will assume managerial responsibilities, while the search is underway for an executive creative director to work alongside him.
Sherwood added: “We are not looking for a direct replacement chief executive. We will use the MD/ECD model and see how it goes.”
Yamaguchi was hired to win more domestic business for BBH Japan, which counts Nippon Lever, Levi's and Diageo as its major clients.
The latter part of Yamaguchi's career was spent running Dentsu's subsidiaries in Europe and the Americas as deputy director of the international management division.
