Nick Pahade, president of Publicis Groupe’s Denuo, is outta there. Pahade is heading over to some company called GSI Commerce, which is an e-commerce and online merchant tech provider. He’ll be leading their marketing services team.
AdWeak pointed out that this is the second high level departure for entrepreneurial horizons. “Omnicom Group’s top digital media executive, Sean Finnegan, said he would depart to join Vibrant Media, a fast-growing ad network, as chief marketing officer.”
Is that a new trend? Think not. What we do think is that Denuo was the big shit before Publicis picked up Digitas. Maybe he misses running the the go-to shop. In that Google/Publicis pairing, it’s Digitas CEO David Kenny who is the liaison. Hmm… which came first – Pahade leaving or the choice of Digitas/Kenny to head up the exchange program?
Quite possibly, Pahade, who started Beyond Interactive in 1995, may just be jonesing for a smaller pond with less rules, which offers him more direct control of the ship. Either way, good luck to him!