Omnicom PR Consolidates Asia-Pacific Leadership Under New APAC CEO

Omnicom PR has named Joanne Wong as its new Asia-Pacific CEO, effective July 1. The appointment marks a significant shift in how the world's largest PR network organizes itself across the region.

Wong, who has served as president of FleishmanHillard's Asia-Pacific operations, will now oversee all Omnicom PR agency brands across the region. That includes Weber Shandwick, FleishmanHillard, and Golin. She will report directly to global CEO Chris Foster.

The move is not just a promotion. It also eliminates several established leadership roles.

A New Layer Replaces Individual Brand Heads

Two senior executives lose their positions under the new structure. Tyler Kim, who led Weber Shandwick's Asia-Pacific operations from Seoul, and Darren Burns, who served as Golin's regional president, will no longer have a place in the new setup. Their roles simply cease to exist.

In their place, a single holding-company CEO now spans what were previously separate agency networks. Wong becomes the single point of authority for Omnicom PR across Asia-Pacific, removing the brand-level CEOs who previously ran each agency independently.

At the country level, some leaders are absorbing bigger mandates. Carolyn Devanayagam in Singapore and Elizabeth Bae in Korea are both taking on expanded Omnicom PR responsibilities that go beyond their individual agency brand remits.

The combined fee income of Omnicom PR's Asia-Pacific operations is estimated at around US$150 million, roughly 5% of the group's global PR revenue.

The Third Major Restructure Move in 2026

This appointment is not happening in isolation. It is the third major structural change Omnicom PR has made this year.

In February, Omnicom merged Golin and Ketchum into a single PR network, with Golin CEO Matt Neale leading the combined entity. Around the same time, Porter Novelli was folded into FleishmanHillard rather than operated as a standalone agency.

All of this traces back to November 2025, when Omnicom completed its acquisition of Interpublic Group, creating a combined company with roughly US$26 billion in revenue. Since then, Omnicom has merged or shut down more than 20 agency brands globally and is targeting US$3.2 billion in portfolio exits as it strips out redundancy across the enlarged group.

The same playbook used on creative and media networks is now being applied to PR.

What It Means for the Region

For clients and competitors in Asia-Pacific, the structural implications are real.

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Wong's mandate is to coordinate across brands that, until now, competed with each other for the same clients. The question that follows is whether that coordination improves client service or creates confusion about which agency team is actually responsible for what.

Industry observers have noted that the consolidation "fundamentally rewrites the competitive dynamic in Asia, pitting massive, merged legacy machines against specialized boutique firms." The implication is clear: independent PR agencies in the region may find new opportunities as clients re-evaluate their relationships with a much larger, integrated Omnicom PR.

Asia-Pacific remains the PR industry's fastest-growing region, with an 8.4% annual growth rate forecast through 2031. Omnicom is betting that a centralized regional structure positions it better to capture that growth than a collection of competing agency brands.

Whether the efficiency gains outweigh the loss of brand independence and institutional knowledge remains to be seen.