Senior GroupM agency leaders in APAC depart

Several senior leaders in the GroupM organisation in Asia-Pacific have departed or are leaving, Campaign has learned.

Rohan Lightfoot, who was the chief growth officer (CGO) at Mindshare, is no longer in his role, Mindshare confirmed to Campaign. Lightfoot assumed the role in 2018 after moving from Isobar, where he was APAC managing director.

At Wavemaker, Campaign understands Charlie Wright, who is the CGO, will be leaving at the end of 2023 when her contract ends. Wright spent 14 years at MEC in London before moving with the agency to Singapore in 2012.

Wright joined Wavemaker in 2018 in China as CGO for the country, before taking up a regional role.

Other departures include Janice Hong, the chief commercial officer at Wavemaker and Dylan Choong, the chief people officer at GroupM. Hong has been at Wavemaker for 12 years and Choong joined GroupM in March 2022 from Adidas.

These departures come at a time when Christian Juhl, the chief executive of GroupM revealed that its agencies EssenceMediacom, Wavemaker, MSix & Partners and Mindshare will no longer be responsible for their own budgets as of 2024.

GroupM will instead now allocate budgets and resources on a country-by-country basis, moving away from letting individual agencies manage their own budgets. This shift is expected to create efficiencies and focus more on client strategy. 

GroupM has denied that the departures are related to what Juhl has announced, sharing that in an organisation as large as GroupM and in a region as significant as APAC, personnel moves are quite common.