Dentsu Group Inc.
Dentsu · TYO:4324 · Tokyo, Japan
Dentsu Group Inc. (TYO: 4324) is a Tokyo-headquartered global advertising holding company founded in 1901 — the oldest and only top-five holdco outside the US or Western Europe. It operates through dentsu Japan and a cross-border network spanning ~145 markets including Carat, iProspect, Dentsu Creative, and Merkle. Takeshi Sano became President and Global CEO on March 27, 2026, succeeding Hiroshi Igarashi.
Dentsu Group Inc. is the oldest of the global advertising holdcos — founded in Tokyo in 1901, three decades before BBDO and JWT predecessors began consolidating into what would become Omnicom and WPP — and remains the only top-five holdco headquartered outside the United States or Western Europe. The group operates as two reporting halves: dentsu Japan, the dominant agency in the Japanese market, and dentsu international, the cross-border network built on the 2013 acquisition of Aegis Group that today encompasses Carat, iProspect, dentsu X, Dentsu Creative and Merkle.
Leadership turned over at the March 27, 2026 annual general meeting. Takeshi Sano replaced Hiroshi Igarashi as Representative Executive Officer, President and Global CEO and concurrently took over as CEO of dentsu Japan; Igarashi, a 40-year company veteran who took the global CEO role in 2022, transitioned to Executive Senior Advisor. The same restructuring promoted Yoshimasa Watahiki to Representative Executive Officer and Executive Vice President with the dual brief of Global Chief Corporate Affairs Officer and COO of dentsu Japan, and elevated Shigeki Endo to Director and Executive Officer, Global CFO. The company framed the moves as accelerating “transformation under the new management structure.”
The financial backdrop the new team inherits is mixed. FY2024 net revenue of JPY 1,194.1 billion was up 5.7 percent reported but flat on an organic basis, with the CXM (customer experience management) segment in double-digit decline against double-digit growth in Business Transformation. Management’s FY2027 targets — 4 percent organic growth and a 16–17 percent operating margin — are the public yardstick by which Sano’s tenure will be measured.
For this publication’s audience, Dentsu shows up most often in two contexts: as the third-party measurement and media-buying counterparty on programmatic CTV and identity-resolution work (where dentsu sits on the IAB Tech Lab Privacy-enhancing Governance Cohort and Leap initiative), and as the holdco peer set against which Omnicom, WPP, Publicis, IPG and Stagwell are benchmarked on global media and creative reviews.