Dentsu Creative has hired a new UK CEO, poaching Jessica Tamsedge from McCann where she was made chief client officer for UK and Europe in January.

Tamsedge joined McCann as managing director in October 2019 and was previously at Grey London for five years. She will now oversee 400 people across Dentsu Creative’s offices in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Newcastle. Clients include Vodafone, Kellogg’s, Heinz, Waitrose, The Co-operative Bank.

Dentsu Creative UK launched in June 2022 as part of a big change at the Japanese-owned group which saw the departure of global CEO Wendy Clark and a swift u-turn from Omnicom’s Alex Hesz, who had been due to join as global chief strategy officer.

Tamsedge said: “I cannot wait to join and champion this incredible team, rallying around a shared ambition for modern creativity to drive growth. Our industry talks about the need for integration, but few UK creative agencies have the diversity of talent, discipline and geographical footprint of Dentsu Creative: truly collaborative by nature and integrated by design.”

James Morris, currently Dentsu’s CEO for EMEA and UK, will now focus on EMEA. He joined Dentsu from Stink where he was global CEO, in September 2019.