Dan Clays, chief executive of Omnicom Media Group UK, has been promoted to chief executive EMEA of OMG.
In the new role, Clays will oversee strategy, operations and the development and adoption of transformative capabilities to support OMG agencies.
These include OMD, PHD, Hearts & Science and the data and analytics division, Annalect.
Clays succeeds Guy Marks, who has been named chief executive of PHD Worldwide. He will take up the new role on 1 October and will be based in London, reporting to OMG global chief executive Florian Adamski.
Clays has been with OMG for more than a decade, spending four years as OMG UK chief executive and, before that, seven years as chief executive of OMD UK. He previously held roles at Arena Media and Quantum Digital
Adamski said: “In leadership roles at both OMD and OMG UK over a decade that has seen seismic technological, economic and cultural shifts, Dan has consistently driven business growth for our clients and agencies by keeping our offer several cycles ahead of the next disruption.”
As chief executive of OMG UK, Clays led the expansion of Omnicom’s ecommerce business, Transact, which led to a retail media partnership with Tesco. He also oversaw the development and launch of OMG Impact, an ESG measurement tool picked up first by the UK government. Clays also helped establish OMG’s TRKKN analytics and cloud consultancy.
OMG says its UK agencies earned $1.3bn over the past two years in total new-business wins. These include British Airways, British Gas, Comparethemarket, Jaguar Land Rover, Peloton and Virgin Media. Retained clients include Channel 4, John Lewis Partnership and the UK government.
Clays said: “As the EMEA CEO, my priority will be to build on Guy Marks’ success by ensuring the future-fit offer and transformational technology that will drive growth for our clients, our agencies and our talent across the region.”
His successor as chief executive of OMG UK is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
