Rob Harvey Is Ready For His Moment as “Guardian” of Dentsu AUNZ

Three months into the CEO job, Rob Harvey is thinking of himself as a “guardian of this moment in time” for Dentsu Australia and New Zealand.

To transform the business’ commercial outlook, establish and communicate stability, and continue making necessary change at pace, the exec -- who has been with Dentsu for 14 years, and led the New Zealand unit for 12 -- is drawing inspiration from the ‘Māori worldview’, or ‘te ao Māori’.

​In April, he told LBB the concepts of ‘Manaakitanga’ -- showing care, hospitality, and respect for others -- and ‘Kaitiakitanga’, a belief in guardianship and stewardship, shape his leadership. Asked by LBB how he’s thinking about those principles in the new role, as part of his first round of press interviews in the top job, Rob says he is influenced by Māori, Japanese, and First Nations cultures.

“There's another belief in Māori culture called whakapapa, which is essentially a concept that we exist for a moment in time but our arms are interlinked with all of the generations that have come before us, right to the very first person, but also interlinked until the end of time, with everyone that will come after us.

“You have a responsibility as a guardian of this moment in time to set whatever it is you're responsible for up, and in this case, Dentsu, up for the future. So that gives me a real sense of responsibility and a real deep sense of care for what we're doing here.”

He’s on a journey to learn about the traditional owners of Australia’s lands, now the country is within his remit (“it grounds you in your place and purpose”), and notes all three cultures share a belief in interconnectedness. That’s how he’s thinking about uniting and running the business, bringing its capabilities closer and “driving a much more interconnected culture.”

The business’ capabilities include creative (Dentsu Creative), media (Carat), data and analytics, performance (iProspect), production at scale (TAG), experience (Merkle), sports and entertainment, and even developing original games through SMG Studio. “We’ve just launched the LEGO Party game.” Rob sees his job as “maximising the potential that I know exists in this organisation.

“There's huge potential for us to unlock all of that capability in unique and different ways. So I'm very focused on how our capability connects, and using the potential of that diversity to power our client solutions.”

The number one thing he wants the market to know about the business he’s now responsible for is this: “We’re entering a new chapter and a new era.”

“There's a pioneering spirit that exists in the history of our organisation, in all aspects of the business, so we can take that spirit going forward,” he said.

“But we are very determined to set up a business that's successful in the context of our local market. So yes, we're part of a global business, but we're setting this business up for success locally and we're entering a new chapter or a new era for the business here in Australia and New Zealand.”

That era began in August, when he was named Patricio de Matteis’ successor. The holdco said Patricio, who joined in 2023 to replace Angela Tangas, had guided the business "through a period of significant change.” Rob has also been thrust into change: following the exit of Kirsty Muddle (who becomes Ogilvy’s CEO in the new year), he has unpicked the structure established last year, which saw Kirsty lead product and practice, and Fiona Johnston lead client counsel and commercial. Fiona’s role was made redundant to flatten the leadership structure and create "a simpler and more competitive business". Rob’s long history with the business in New Zealand means he has “a good basis of understanding, which has enabled me to move at real pace.”

He isn’t scared of change. Instead, he sees it as “an incredibly energising force and a real moment of opportunity … We need to constantly evolve as an organisation. Standing still is a really dangerous place for us to be.”

Dentsu is not alone in navigating significant change. Competitor Omnicom Oceania has announced its plans now the global business’ acquisition of IPG is complete. In addition to Kirsty Muddle joining Ogilvy next year, WPP also has new global leadership. With the tectonic plates of the industry shifting so significantly, is it easier to get grace or harder to keep focus?

“An industry of creativity and innovation thrives in change,” Rob says. “That's always been true of our industry and actually the moments in our industry where we've stood still is where creativity has waned and we haven't seen those amazing bursts of innovation.

In his first 90 days -- focusing on his people and clients -- he’s been struck by “the high degree of trust that we have with our clients, the strength of those relationships” – and balancing the push and pull of change and “a message just around stability. Because when you go through a number of leadership changes, just providing them with my perspective on the world, the experience that I have within our group, and why that's important as we take the business into the next chapter [is important].”

Foundational stability of clients’ day-to-day teams, and his own leadership bench is critical, Rob explains. He’s focused on “connecting with our people, being really open and transparent around what's happening in our business, lifting the degree of communications, sharing where we're heading as an organisation, being open and answering any questions they might have.”

Six weeks into his term, the business’ engagement score check-in showed 29 of the 30 questions surveyed had improved. The two that showed the greatest improvement were ‘trust and belief in leadership communications’, up 15 points, and ‘trust in leadership’, which rose 8 points.

“We've seen great momentum in a very short space of time with the change we're driving in the culture,” he said.

He’s also hyperfixated on improving the business’ commercial position. In its most recent results, Australia’s growth was down 10% and singled out as “challenging”. Across the AUNZ region, Dentsu posted a $64 million loss to December 2024, and accumulated losses have passed the $1 billion mark.

“We're turning the business performance around commercially,” Rob promises. “So Q4 looks really positive for us from a revenue perspective, and we've significantly turned the profit position of the organisation around. 2026 shapes up to be a strong year.”

He’ll need to hire a chief creative officer swiftly in the new year; in May, Ben Coulson departed and New Zealand co-CCO Brett Colliver has been the interim top creative since. While he can’t comment on the recruitment process, Rob said he’s determined to simultaneously “have the best capability in market” across all leadership positions, and ensure he elevates and empowers internal talent.

“Unlocking the potential of the internal talent that we have is going to be really important as well. Not everything we do needs to be about bringing external talent into the business. We've got great leaders in a lot of areas of our organisation. We just need to empower them and set them up for success.”

He cares about connecting people and capability. By rolling out Dentsu’s global Media++ strategy locally, he wants to connect “creativity with media, data with creativity, experience with media, experience with creativity.

“The ++ is the connector that joins our capability and really powers it in unique and different ways.

“I believe we have a massive opportunity in how we're trying to organise our group and connect our capability to power media in different ways, and there's a huge role for all of the work that we do with the transactional side of media and the data and analytics that powers that and the innovation and AI that's attached to that. But how can we think more about applying human creativity into the media solutions that we're putting into the world? That's part of what we're trying to design for.”

In New Zealand, for instance, one CSO -- Lisa Devitt -- runs a planning department that stretches across the business, spanning both media and creative. Rob will consider how “we better connect our capabilities” across the entirety of AUNZ now, “and think about the business problems we're trying to solve for our clients and how we best solve those through the activation of our capabilities. Just because a client is a media client or a creative client, doesn't mean we can't be applying the diversity of the thinking that we have.”

To get there, he’ll be balancing perfectionism with pace. Earlier this year, he told LBB his perfectionism is a characteristic he has to manage. With the remit and pressure now dialled up, he is viewing the job as a marathon, not a sprint, and catching himself when he notices he is putting too much pressure on himself, too quickly. Equally, he has to build momentum while taking those around him on the journey.

“I want stuff to be moving really quickly for us to be progressing and moving forward and making the changes that we need to make,” he says.

“Over time, you change the way you work, then you change the culture of the organisation, you apply the diversity of talent that I've talked about to client solutions, then clients see that we've launched from a really stable foundation and are suddenly bringing them different and better solutions.”

After half an hour speaking about what he wants the market to know about Dentsu, Rob is asked what he wants his people, clients, and the market to know about him. He doesn’t hesitate.

“That I'm a good human.”