Omnicom Media Group splits its EMEA and APAC leadership

Omnicom Media Group (OMG) has split its EMEA and APAC leadership, appointing OMD’s Guy Marks as chief executive of its EMEA region, while moving Mike Cooper into a new role.

Cooper has been Omnicom Media Group’s EMEA and APAC chief since 2019. Under his watch, OMG has won several major global accounts, such as Mercedes-Benz, Diageo and Chanel.

The former long-serving PHD global boss has been given a new role as vice-chairman of Omnicom Group Europe and will now report to Omnicom president and chief operating officer Daryl Simm.  

Cooper, a founding executive of OMG, will now support Omnicom’s international client strategy and be involved in Omnicom University, the network’s talent development programme that is led by Karen Van Bergen. 

Cooper’s new role follows 25 years as a founding executive of OMG, where his leadership roles included CEO of PHD and OMG CEO of EMEA and APAC, where he led the original formation of OMD.

Marks becomes one of four Omnicom Media Group regional leaders, including Scott Hagedorn in North America, Tony Harradine in APAC and Julian Porras in LATAM.

In his new role, Marks will oversee regional strategy, operations and the development of “transformative” products and services to support its media agencies—OMD, PHD, Hearts & Science—and its data and analytics division, Annalect.

He joined OMG in 2014 after Omnicom acquired Mobile5 Media, a UX, design and tech consultancy service that he co-founded. He was promoted to OMD EMEA chief executive in 2018 and has led the network to multiple new clients and industry accolades, including Manning Gottlieb OMD cleaning up at last year’s Media Week Awards and capturing the Agency of the Year crown.

His former colleague and OMD UK chief executive, Tim Pearson, has also secured a new role this week, at LadBible.

Marks' successor at OMD is expected to be named in the coming weeks.

He will report to Omnicom Media Group global CEO Florian Adamski, who defined OMG's mission: "to live in service of our markets by enabling transformational product and client service".

For OMG’s regional leaders, this means creating products that enable its agencies "to quickly identify, adapt and be responsive in real time to the challenges of a dramatically changing consumer marketplace".

Adamski added: “Guy has proven time and again that he knows how to build the teams, capabilities, tools and products that elevate the agency/client relationship from transactional to transformational.”

Marks added: “My career to date—whether in the start-up space or as part of the world’s biggest media agency—can be summed up in one word: collaboration. Whether you’re 10 people around a kitchen table, or 10,000 people around the EMEA region, collaboration elevates our thinking and accelerates the pace of change.  

“As the CEO of Omnicom Media Group EMEA, my priority will be assuring our agencies have the talent, technology and behaviours required to drive collaboration, fuel innovation and deliver better outcomes for our clients.”