Andrew Dimitriou moved to Dept last September as global chief client and growth officer from VML. He was in India alongside Vishnu Mohan, partner and chief growth officer, Dept, during which we chatted with the duo about Indian operations, whether the country is embracing tech, spreading the word about the agency, and a lot more (read the full chat in our June issue).

Dimitriou was making his first market visit after taking on this role. 

About the Indian operations, he said, "I’m meeting the team, clients, and prospects, while also seeing the capabilities Dept has in the country. It’s one of our largest operations from a headcount point of view. My visit here was to see how we can expand the business locally and internationally. The meetings with the clients were positive, and I’m impressed with clients' outlook and their forward-lookingness about technology. Every client conversation naturally gravitated towards what technology is doing for them and their marketing business. It’s a pro-technology market and that’s what our discussions were around."

His mandate at the agency is growing clients globally. 

How does he plan to do that?

"One of the things we wanted to set up is a program specifically designed around our top clients and we have done that. We have a key account program now that we run globally and our top 25 clients are growing at 10%, which is refreshing for me. It’s about putting some principles in place so that we can become the best partner our client has. That’s one aspect of the job. The other is about prioritising certain partnerships. Instead of trying to be all partners to all people, we have made strategic bets with Adobe, Salesforce, Shopify, Google and OpenAI Thirdly, on marketing, coming from a network agency, one of the first things I wanted to do here is that Dept is more known in the marketplace. That’s an ongoing journey and we are making progress. The marketing dashboard tells us that Dept is more known now than it was seven months ago," he revealed.

Mohan stated where he believes the Indian growth will come from.

"There’s still a lot of headroom for digital transformation in the country. Some of the industries, like banking and finance, have gone ahead and implemented it, but a lot of the others, like health and retail, still have a long way to go. The design practice that we started – I know the country has agencies catering to this space – but we are kind of hybridising this international expertise fused with domestic talent. This means that the teams here are mentored by the teams from Netherlands and that duality plays an amazing role with respect to the client. They are getting process driven high quality work at a price point that’s competent. That plays well for us," he said.

He added, "At the end of the day the clients are the same – we are dealing with the CMOs and so we get a wind of the discussions way ahead in time. So, there’s a nice spot for us to pivot from what we have and add on more capabilities organically or inorganically. We grew the design practice organically and there are other services we believe can also be added organically."

For the full conversation with the duo, buy our June issue here.