Omnicom strategy chief Alex Hesz departs to focus on UK general election

Alex Hesz is stepping down from Omnicom after just over a year as global chief strategy officer and is going to focus on UK politics.

Omnicom described Hesz’s move in an internal memo as “an exciting opportunity focused on the upcoming British general election” but did not identify a political party.

Hesz, who is British, told colleagues in the memo that US-based Omnicom had been a “perfect place” to work.

“However, as we move into what I believe will be an important year for the world, it’s time for me to change course,” he said.

“I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside the political world in a private capacity over several years and this is the moment to invest some real energy against an agenda that matters to me.”

When asked by Campaign, Hesz declined to elaborate or confirm whether he will work for Labour.

He will leave Omnicom at the end of December, after resigning from his role as executive vice-president, chief strategy officer.

Hesz is known to be close to Labour and has done some work previously for the Tony Blair Institute.

He also attended both the Labour and Conservative party conferences earlier this year and wrote about the experience for Campaign.

Labour, which is led by Sir Keir Starmer, is the front-runner in the polls, ahead of an election that the ruling Conservative Party must call by January 2025, although there is speculation a vote could happen as early as spring 2024.

Hesz will bring experience of working with some of Britain’s biggest brands, including John Lewis & Partners, during his time at Omnicom agency Adam & Eve/DDB earlier in his career.

John Wren, the chief executive of Omnicom, said in the memo that Hesz “has always had a great passion for making a difference in people’s lives, both personally and through policy” and “it comes as no surprise that he wants to take his influence to a higher level”.  

Campaign reported last year that Labour was working with Lucky Generals, which is majority-owned by Omnicom.

Omnicom won’t appoint a new global CSO after Hesz leaves

It is understood that the US-listed agency group has no immediate plans to replace Hesz, who took the newly created global chief strategy officer position in November 2022.

Dropping the global CSO role is a surprise because Hesz was one of a number of global job appointments that Omnicom made at the holding company level for the first time last year. This was part of a drive to win and retain big, integrated client accounts that span the full spectrum of agency capabilities.

Andrea Lennon was promoted to global chief client officer and Kathleen Saxton joined as global chief marketing officer from MediaLink, around the same time that Hesz took the global CSO role.

Clients “want one arse to kick”, Hesz told Campaign in an interview in January, explaining the rationale for the holdco strategy. Omnicom’s biggest clients include Apple, PepsiCo and Volkswagen Group.

Hesz first joined Adam & Eve/DDB in London in 2011, before its acquisition by Omnicom, and stayed for a decade, rising to global CSO in the DDB network.

He resigned from Omnicom in December 2021 to join rival Dentsu, which was being led at the time by the former DDB chief executive Wendy Clark.

But he never formally started at Dentsu. In a dramatic U-turn, he pulled out of the scheduled move at the last minute, after Clark exited, and he agreed to stay at Omnicom as its first global CSO.

Omnicom increased organic revenue by 4% in the first nine months of the year, behind bigger rival Publicis Groupe but ahead of some other competitors. It won Most Creative Company, previously known as the Holding Company of the Year award, at Cannes Lions 2023.

However, Omnicom’s share price has dropped more than 10% from its peak in July as analysts have worried about slowing growth.

Wren, the longest-serving chief executive in the agency sector, made the biggest acquisition in the company’s history when he announced the planned $900m purchase of digital commerce company Flywheel from Ascential, the owner of Cannes Lions, in October.