Second high-level departure at Omnicom as CMO steps down

Kathleen Saxton is to step down as chief marketing officer of Omnicom—the second departure from the holding company’s global leadership team to emerge this week.

Omnicom recruited Saxton just over a year ago to be its first CMO and boost its brand. She will continue working for the 74,000-strong agency group for a further four months and will leave in April 2024.

Her departure follows news that Alex Hesz, another Briton, was leaving as chief strategy officer, after little more than a year in his global role.

Saxton said she and John Wren, the long-serving chief executive of Omnicom, had agreed for her to be “released”, according to an email that she wrote to senior agency leaders within the group.

She praised Omnicom as a “glorious” company but her internal note suggested there was a difference of opinion over corporate vision.

“Sometimes in life, timing and ambition in the corporate world does not always align with our personal vision and so John and I have agreed, with pragmatism and grace, that I be released later next year to experience a new adventure,” Saxton wrote.

Omnicom declined to comment to Campaign. Saxton would not comment and referred questions to Omnicom.

The exits of Saxton and Hesz, who has said he is leaving to focus on the upcoming UK general election, will raise questions about whether Omnicom is committed to developing a significant leadership layer at the holding company level.

Omnicom previously created a series of new job roles at the holdco level, starting with the promotion of Daryl Simm to chief operating officer in October 2021, as part of a push to win and retain more large client accounts across the full spectrum of agency capabilities.

Wren and Simm subsequently appointed Saxton as the group's first CMO, Hesz as its first CSO and Andrea Lennon as its first chief client officer in the autumn of 2022.

Visible presence

Saxton is a well-known figure in UK and global advertising and was a visible presence at this year’s Cannes Lions, the biggest annual event in the industry calendar, in June.

Omnicom increased its investment in Cannes by creating its own purpose-built space, Omnicom Cove, to host clients and staff. It won the most creative company of the year award at the festival.

Saxton previously founded and ran The Lighthouse Company, an executive search company, for more than a decade, before shutting it in summer 2020 because of the pandemic.

She went on to be EMEA managing director of MediaLink, the US-based consulting and executive search firm, for two years, before being headhunted by Omnicom in October 2022.

She moved from London to New York when she took the CMO role.