Dept, the personal equity-backed Dutch company group, has appointed Jerry Buhlmann as its non-executive chairman.
He’ll work intently with Dept’s chief government, Dimi Albers, and the remainder of the senior crew to assist the digital company’s growth.
Buhlmann is likely one of the most senior former company chiefs of the final decade with expertise of main a inventory market-listed firm.
He turned chief government of Britain’s Aegis Group in 2010, earlier than promoting the FTSE-250 firm to Japan’s Dentsu and happening to change into chief government of the enlarged Dentsu Aegis Community in 2013.
Buhlmann remained on this function till 2018.
Albers mentioned: “As we proceed our fast, international progress his views and expertise will probably be massively useful, particularly as we search to keep up the agility, flexibility and private relationships of a boutique company.”
At the moment, Buhlmann holds a spread of roles, together with chairman of personal equity-funded digital company Croud, chair of higher-education advertising and marketing specialist, Hybrid, and senior unbiased director at Inchcape.
The Carylye Group invested in Dept in 2019. Buhlmann’s appointment follows a yr of growth for the “challenger” company, which purchased UK advertising and marketing know-how retailers Byte and Feed in 2021, and inventive studio Hey Monday in 2022.
Buhlmann mentioned there was loads of alternative for Dept due to “disruption to the model and client worth chain for the foreseeable future”.
He mentioned: “Dept is strongly positioned as a number one disruptor within the company sector, delivering pioneering work for manufacturers with an increasing international footprint.”
Dept’s shoppers have included Google, Meta, Amazon and Samsung.
Albers has been beefing up the management crew in current months, together with recruiting Mickey Kalifa, chief monetary officer of UK-listed M&C Saatchi, to take the identical function at Dept.
Albers informed Marketing campaign final yr that Dept has “an enormous, bushy, audacious purpose of changing into the very best digital company on this planet” and mentioned a inventory market flotation was certainly one of a number of potential choices for the long run.
Dept employs round 2,500 folks in 30 nations throughout 5 continents.