Hemanth Jayaraman steps down as head of DentsuX

Hemanth Jayaraman, head of DentsuX in Malaysia, has stepped down from his position after a year and a half at the company.

Jayaraman, a marketer by training, joined Dentsu in May 2021 as part of the media service line executive committee. His appointment came alongside the hiring of industry heavyweights Asha Nair as MD of media investment and platforms and Jing-Wen Foo as eCommerce director. During his appointment, Dentsu said that the move came as part of the evolution of dentsu's rebranding and transformed organisational design. Jayaraman was reporting to CEO Dheeraj Raina who shared during his appointment that denstu was building a technical and data-driven marketing spine that goes end-to-end in its business.

Prior to Dentsu, Jayaraman was at Moet Hennessy Diageo Malaysia where he worked in the marketing and commercial department for a little under two years.

Before that, he was in PepsiCo for a little over two and a half years where he was the Tropicana activation lead for the APAC region. Here, he led all the APAC markets and enabled them to grow value, volume share and deliver profitability for the organisation. Before taking up his role as activation lead, Jayaraman was the marketing and commercial manager for Lipton RTDT for Malaysia, Singapore and Mongolia.

He also was the founder and brand strategy director of Sw1tch Strategies, a boutique agency which started its operations in 2012. He led the agency till 2017. According to his LinkedIn profile, he successfully secured MNC clientele in a pitch for project against 4As agencies and managed the overall human resources and finance of the agency to ensure healthy profit margins and marketing of the agency. The agency then went on to work with brands such as Johnnie Walker, Audi, Vespa, Lamborghini and UOB Bank.

Jayaraman confirmed his exit to A+M and said his time in dentsu under the media service line was enlightening and educational. “I really wanted to learn how media works and the intricacies of it and dentsu provided me that opportunity which I am grateful for,” he explained.

“My passion has always been in brand and marketing. Being in media, I was part of the brand equation and didn’t have the full view of the marketing aspects of things which is something that I am passionate about. The client side is where I have that view and control on strategy and ultimately brand performance,” he added.

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