Embracing change for transformation | Jean Lin, Global Practices, Dentsu

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Towards the end of October 2023, Dentsu Group reshuffled its leadership and unveiled a ‘global practices’ structure to centralise its teams and change the face of integrated growth delivery for clients.

This new entity is led by Group President of Global Practices, Jean Lin.

The launch underpinned Dentsu’s ambition to build an integrated, end-to-end solutions to drive client growth, while emphasising its commitment to the global leadership brands including Carat, iProspect, Dentsu X, Dentsu Creative, Merkle and Tag.

On the other hand, Peter Huijboom, the captain of the ship (until Harsha took charge as India CEO) after Dentsu’s restructuring in 2022 that saw a series of top management exits from the organisation, stepped down from his role as CEO, media and international markets.

Rob Gilby, CEO of APAC and other regional CEOs now work with Global Practices.

We caught up with Lin to discuss more about the Global Practices team, challenges facing the business today and her view on the next leg of Dentsu’s journey.

Lin is a Dentsu veteran having joined Isobar in 2004 following the acquisition of Wwwins Consulting, a digital consulting firm she founded in Greater China, eventually becoming Global CEO of Isobar in 2014.

Since 2019, Lin has held several senior executive positions at Dentsu international including Global CEO CX and commerce, and Global CEO Creative.

She became an Executive Officer of Dentsu Group Inc. in 2021 to develop the group’s business solution and accelerator for sustainability, Dentsu Good.

Lin most recently served a member of Dentsu Group executive management team and as Chief Culture Officer at the group before taking on the role as Group President – Global Practices.

Read excerpts of the interview below:

Q: You set up Global Practices under Dentsu Group in October. Tell us more about Dentsu’s strategy’s in setting up Global Practises and what does it do?

A: This is part of a very important action for Dentsu Group to move into an even more client centric organization, to help our client really to deliver their growth. In our new operating model, we have a few key components in in the model- we have a very, focused management organization and committee to ensure that we always lead with client at heart, while proactively thinking of how can we help clients to solve the problem. We also have this global practices where we bring in all the unique and fabulous capabilities at the end together to ensure that we create a learning organization and also ensure that all the best practices are brought to the client proactively, in a distinctive and connected way to help clients to drive, drive growth and deliver integrated growth solutions. We have a component called data and tech because we have a lot of data and technology products, this is a key focus area to help our clients deliver next level of growth in enabling them to deliver a solution. We have a clear data and tech strategy to enable the organisation to grow horizontally. We have global delivery unit. Many of our clients are looking at how they can enhance efficiency but also proactively thinking of how can they, drive the strategy and growth through our talent. And this global delivery unit is what is really enabling our global growth.

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Q: So how do your regional CEOs-AMEA, APAC CEOs, Japan CEO work with Global Practises?

A: So we’re basically one management team. This is one Dentsu model to have one strategy, one process and one management team. All the regional CEOs are partner for me in the Global Practice on how we define the ‘go-to-market, and other solutions. And we work with the regional CEOs on how they implement it proactively and in a relevant way to the local markets. Because not one market is the same. What we want to do is to help our clients assess our capability much easier and more consistent way. But we don’t want to create a top down model, because sometimes that doesn’t work in helping to deliver to our client with agility.

Q: How is it implemented in India?

A: Yeah, India is one of the most interesting players and they are really ahead of the time because they have been thinking about this with client centricity over the past few years. So, the global practice is really going well over. The creative, media and CXM and how they work together. I just had a meeting with them just to watch them and how they proactively connect with each other to solve the client’s problem.

We are not really bogged down in in terms of what’s the organizational structure. We have a mind-set of how can we create this value for our client that are ideas led, AI powered and value driven regardless of where you sit in the Dentsu organisation.

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Q: What are the top challenges facing your business today?

A: I think the overall advertising market has, huge opportunity and challenges because of a few things. Technology has now democratized many of the functionality. AI is coming into play that can actually push us in thinking on how we deliver content advertising and solution in an entirely different way. The clients want something that is less complex and they want something that is more integrated. This really gives us an opportunity to think of how we organize ourselves, how we deliver solutions, how we come up with innovation to really drive impact for our clients’ businesses in an entirely different way.

Q: You have been with Dentsu for decades, the group has had a complete overhaul for the past few years to have a new structure. How do look at the journey of this transformation that has happened?

A: One thing, I want to say first is that Dentsu is a company was 123 years of history. We were joking about it the other day. A lot of the things that we have been through from this historical lens of 123 years is like a blink, right? We need to change. We need to transform ourselves. We need to perform better.

And we want to innovate. We want to create impact. For this to happen, we do need to take the suffering as well to ensure that we transform and really embrace change. I think that is what’s happening in the past few years. There is a journey that we all are on boarding and we are taking our team with us. There are some colleagues that we really love that are doing different things right now that they never intended to, but we are always and forever grateful for the fact that we actually enjoy the moment with them and create something meaningful while they are here.

I think now we are on a new page. We have a new strategy. We have a new operating model. A lot of our clients are actually telling us how happy they are when we go through the simplification. We have done a lot of hard work in the past few years, and this is a moment we can truly create value for them.

For more, watch the accompanying video

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow