Dentsu-Owned gyro Goes Through a Round of Downsizing Across U.S. Network

By Patrick Coffee 

gyro, the B2B-focused specialty agency acquired by Dentsu Aegis less than a year ago, went through a round of downsizing last week.

The precise scale of the staffing reduction is unclear, but we can confirm that it affected multiple offices across the U.S. network, which currently include New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Cincinnati, Chicago and Denver. Global chief strategy officer Patrick O’Hara appears to be the highest-ranking leader let go.

According to its home page, the agency currently employs around 700 across 17 offices around the world.

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An agency spokesperson acknowledged that the downsizing occurred and that O’Hara is no longer with the agency but declined to elaborate. We haven’t heard too much about gyro since February, when the company’s New York headquarters hired former SS+K CCO Kash Sree as group creative director. O’Hara, who graduated from the University of Cambridge, was formerly a consultant who partnered with such agencies as BBDO, Co: Collective, JWT and KBS (where he also worked as a planner).

The Wall Street Journal broke the news of the Dentsu acquisition last July, calling gyro “one of the largest independent ad firms that specializes in business-to-business advertising.” The strategy behind the purchase was for Dentsu to “grab a piece of the growing spending on B2B marketing and advertising.” gyro had formerly been owned by private equity fund Pegasus Capital Advisors, which acquired the company for just under $100 million in 2008.

The changes that took place last week do not appear to be related to any specific piece(s) of business so much as the inevitable streamlining that follows most agency acquisitions.

Another key line from the WSJ report: “The deal will give gyro the resources it needs to expand into growing markets such as Latin America and Asia, said [CEO and CCO] Christoph Becker.”

Today the agency officially opened its first office in Australia nearly four months after Dentsu announced that it would be merging with the Interprise network in the Asia Pacific region.

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