Publicis Groupe names new China CEO of media and digital

Publicis Groupe is bringing in Cary Huang from GroupM to be its new CEO of media and digital in China, effective February 3.

In the newly created role, Huang will be responsible for all media, digital and commerce brands in China including Starcom, Zenith, Spark, Performics, Digitas, Publicis Commerce and social agency Publicis WangFan. He'll report to Publicis Groupe's North Asia CEO and APAC managing partner, Jane Lin-Baden.  

Previously, David Gompel was CEO of Publicis Groupe's digital brands in addition to being APAC managing director of Publicis Sapient. Now Gompel will fully focus on accelerating the consulting business in China. 

Media brands, meanwhile, had fallen under the remit of the Groupe's China Co-CEO Bertilla Teo. In changes to Publicis Groupe's North Asia leadership last September, it was announced that Teo was taking a sabbatical for an unspecified period. 

Lin-Baden says Huang's new role consolidating media and digital brands under one leader has been created to integrate media with performance, digital experience and commerce as part of Publicis' 'Power of One' structure. “Media is channels for reach, and platforms for experiences and transactions," she said. "Our clients today need holistic media and experience solutions that drive both branding and sales."

In a response to questions from Campaign, Lin-Baden said Huang's key priorities will be firstly to integrate and accelerate digital and commerce capabilities and services across all media brands.  Secondly, to better leverage group creative offerings for media clients.

Huang comes to the role from GroupM, where he was both China CEO of out-of-home specialist agency Kinectic as well as CEO of GroupM OOH China. Prior to that, Huang was CEO of publicly listed Chinese communication group Simei and CEO of IPG Mediabrands in China. 

Lin-Baden described Huang as "one of the rare Chinese senior talents who has executive experience of leading both the international and local Chinese listed media groups." She adds, "Cary’s mindset and experience of running integrated offerings is critical for our future business.”