Publicis Sapient has named Nigel Vaz as it’s new global chief executive officer, succeeding Alan Wexler who will become chairman.
Wexler, who was named chief executive in December 2017, will move to become chairman immediately while Vaz will step up to become the first global chief executive in the business. Previously the role was split to include a chief executive of EMEA and APAC – the position previously held by Vaz.
Vaz is also global lead for digital business transformation for the Groupe. He will now be charged with leading Sapient’s ability to offer consulting, creativity and technology to drive digital transformation for clients.
“My initial focus will be on unifying our 20,000 people and 53 offices behind the Publicis Sapient brand and the pursuit of global digital business transformation opportunities," Vaz told The Drum.
"Beyond that, my responsibility will be to drive growth consistently across our markets; the ongoing delivery of best-in-class capabilities across strategy and consulting, experience and engineering; and the attraction and development of the best industry talent.
“As global chief executive, my role will be to accelerate growth and increase the performance of Publicis Sapient by strategically advising clients’ leaders on the creation of exponential value through growth, increased efficiency and superior experiences for customers.”
He added that his focus would be client-centric in helping them ‘transform’ through the use of technology.
“Technology is reshaping how our clients create value and requires execution at a speed never seen before. I’m excited to work with our extraordinary and talented people globally to advance how we connect these capabilities with agility to bring the best transformative solutions to our clients."
Vaz described his vision for the business as being “a single unified brand”.
“We will actively pursue client opportunities in the digital business transformation space. We will evolve our capabilities to stay ahead of the skills needed for digital business transformation, advance our experience and creative capability with a stronger focus on design, and build a market-leading engineering capability,” he explained.
The announcement over the leadership changes came ahead of Publicis Groupe announcing its latest quarterly figures.