Publicis Groupe seeks to ride the growth wave of its Publicis Connected Media unit – which includes its digital experience agencies, martech company Epsiloninfluencer marketing store Influentialthe PMX investment arm and Publicis Media—with several movements of leaders, highlighted by the promotion of Dave Penski to lead all Connected Media operations.
The goal of Publicis Connected Media is to combine every customer and consumer media touchpoint earned, owned, paid for and shared with Epsilon’s identity technology. The company stressed that the new functions do not constitute a reorganization or restructuring, but an acceleration of its business model.
The $4.4 billion spent by Publicis Groupe to acquire Epsilon in 2019 turned out to be a profitable investment, as the market capitalization of the holding company has more than doubled over the past five years, from $10.5 billion to $28 billion, and Epsilon’s executives have risen through the ranks of its parent company.
Penski has worked at Publicis Groupe for more than two decades, most recently as CEO of Publicis Media US, and he is one of five members of the company’s executive committee. The Directoire+ management teamin close collaboration with the CEO Arthur Sadoun.
Chris Boothwho was chief operating officer of Publicis Media and Publicis Groupe US Marketing Services, will assume Penski’s former role as CEO of Publicis Media US, responsible for all profits and losses in the United States, including PMX and Publicis Health Media .
Another Publicis veteran of over 20 years, Shelby Savillemoves from chief investment officer at Publicis Media to CEO of Starcom US, reporting to Boothe, and Mark Griffin will replace Saville in his former role.
Sean Peters has been promoted to director of strategy at Publicis Connected Media.
Former Dentsu’s Carat US CEO Angela Steele, who served as executive vice president, has been elevated to CEO of Publicis Collective US.
At Publicis Health Media, President Andrea Palmer is now CEO.
Joel Lunenfeld will retain his current role as PMX’s U.S. CEO, but will report to both Boothe and Penski.
The roles of Sarah Kramer, CEO of Spark Foundry, and Lauren Hanrahan, CEO of Zenith, will not change, but they will take on global responsibilities.
Michael Epstein, CEO of Starcom Global, adds a newly created U.S. Client Executive role, reporting to Penski and working closely with Magnus Djaba and the Global Client Executive team.
Following Thursday’s actions, all entities under the Publicis Media US umbrella are now led by women, reporting to Boothe.
Boothe said in a memo to employees obtained by ADWEEK: “Our new Publicis Connected Media offering will change the way we market, bringing data and digital experiences closer to media and allowing us to generate, deliver and measure results more effectively . As media will continue to grow in importance and will be a powerful backbone in this new structure, we are making some changes within the Publicis Media organization to strengthen our new proposition.
And Sadoun added in a separate memo to employees obtained by ADWEEK: “With the support of the CEOs of these operations, Dave will lead our efforts to further unite Epsilon’s 250 million consumer IDs with the media channels that matter most for our clients, enabling them to truly know their customers and prospects, and directly link their investments to business outcomes transparently and in their own environments.
