Dominique Delport, the Havas veteran who serves as both the network’s global managing director and president of sister/parent company Vivendi Content, is leaving after more than 17 years to join Vice.
Variety first broke the news yesterday afternoon, but now it’s been confirmed by way of an internal memo sent to staff by Havas chairman Yannick Bollore and reported by The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today.
“Thanks to his talent and commitment, he has been instrumental in growing our media business and developing our global clients,” Bollore wrote, adding that his role will not be replaced. “Since the end of 2016 we have put in place centralized management with the appointment of regional chairmen and CEOs and have established a robust global client council.”
As we hear it, Delport had been planning to leave Havas since before Bollore’s father and his company, Vivendi, finally made good on all those rumors and bought the network for $2.5 billion last May.
Havas will not be issuing a public statement, and a Vice spokesperson declined to comment for now. But the Variety story implies there may be more to the move than what we’ve read so far, especially since Vice just named former A&E executive and former Vivendi business partner Nancy Dubuc as its new CEO.
Expect more news to come.