Dentsu Creative Replacing US Leadership as Abbey Klaassen Takes Over From Paulo Fogaca

Dentsu Creative has parted ways with Paulo Fogaca as U.S. CEO, replacing him with Abbey Klaassen, who was previously New York president of Dentsu Creative. Klaassen helped build the current Dentsu Creative, which launched in 2022. In her new role, she will lead creative talent and direction in the U.S. Klaassen is also part of Dentsu Creative’s global and Americas executive leadership teams. Fogaca was named U.S. CEO in December 2022 with a remit to solidify Dentsu Creative’s vision, strategy and positioning in the U.S., and boost growth for the network and its clients. Dentsu also promoted Laurel Flatt, who previously served as president of client leadership, west region for Dentsu Creative U.S. A Dentsu statement said Flatt will "expand her stewardship of clients from just our Chicago hub and associated markets to the New York hub clients" as the agency's chief client officer. As the president of Dentsu Creative New York, Klaassen headed up the agency’s brand relationships across the board. Before Dentsu Creative was formed, Klaassen was the New York president of 360i, Dentsu’s digital agency, which was folded into Dentsu Creative along with DentsuMB and Isobar. "We’ve transformed into an end-to-end creative powerhouse that believes creativity is not only an advertising deliverable, but also a mindset and an approach for solving brand and business challenges," Klaassen told Adweek. "Momentum is high, and I’m honored to be part of an incredible leadership team. I continue to be impressed by the talent throughout our organization and couldn’t be more excited for what the future holds." Prior to her agency experience, Klaassen was editor in chief at AdAge. She is also the vice chair of the board of directors for the 4A’s. Dentsu Creative and Global Chief Creative Officer Fred Levron Agree to Part Ways Clients have said that Klaassen brings new and insightful ideas and initiatives to the forefront, is detail oriented, challenges thinking and is able to connect various pieces of the puzzle to bring creative solutions to the table for brands. A continual changing of the guard Dentsu has had numerous changes to its C-suite over the past couple of years, as the agency went through a massive companywide reorganization. The formation of Dentsu Creative was orchestrated by two leaders who are no longer with the agency: CEO Wendy Clark and global chief creative officer Fred Levron. Clark announced her departure from the agency in September 2022, while Levron and Dentsu mutually agreed to part ways in March of this year. In September 2022, Dentsu announced a restructuring of its global management, with its Japanese and global leadership teams forming one single leadership group. Hiroshi Igarashi became the global CEO of the holding company, with Levron as global CCO except for the Japanese market. It was called a One Management Team structure, led by Igarashi, as it moved to integrate Dentsu Japan Network and Dentsu International. Fogaca, who had previously been global COO and partner at Gut, came on to formalize the agency’s creative vision under Levron, though the two only worked together for several months. Pedro Perez and Rafael “Rafa” Rizuto both came to Dentsu Creative in 2022, with Perez being named CCO for Chicago and Rizuto CCO for the U.S. and Hispanic LATAM. No new restructuring of the holding company, nor Dentsu Creative, has been announced at this time.