Publicis Groupe: Arthur Sadoun To Take Charge Of New Board Of Directors As Maurice Lévy Assumes Advisory Role
Publicis Groupe has announced the merging of its supervisory and management board into a single board of directors. The current Chairman/CEO of the company, Arthur Sadoun, will become the leader of the new directors of the board while former CEO, Maurice Lévy will take an advisory role as chairman emeritus.
According to the company, the supervisory board will unanimously approve this proposal made by Lévy in its Annual General Meeting set to take place on May 29.
Commenting on the changes Maurice Lévy said, “Publicis Groupe has a long history of anticipating change and transforming itself to face the future. The primary responsibility of any board is to ensure that a company has both the governance structure and the teams it needs to lead it forward. With this in mind, I proposed changing the governance of the Groupe to put in place a Board of Directors, with Arthur Sadoun as Chairman and CEO.”
On his part, Arthur Sadoun said, “The aim of this change in governance is simple: to preserve the driving forces behind Groupe’s success and maintain the model that has made Publicis our industry’s most valuable company in terms of market capitalization. It will also allow us to continue the duo that we have formed with Maurice Lévy since 2017, which has seen Publicis extract itself from the pack and emerge as a clear leader in our sector.”
Sadoun became the Chairman and CEO of the company in June 2017, the third CEO of Publicis in 90 years. Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet founded the Paris agency in 1926 and was succeeded by Maurice Levy in 1987 after he had already worked with him for 16 years.
Sadoun started his career in the company in 2006 as CEO of Publicis Conseil and quickly rose to the top at Publicis Groupe, He was named global CEO of Publicis Worldwide in 2013 and added a leadership position at MSL Group to his responsibilities in 2015.
He was named Ad Age’s Executive of the Year in January 2016, following his performance as CEO of Publicis Worldwide offered some insight into what was ahead at the new Publicis Communications operation he took over.