Caroline Pay, formerly joint CCO with Vicki Maguire at Grey London, has Joined Dentsu Creative’s leadership team as CCO.
Most recently, Pay was CCO at Headspace in California, which she left in July 2022 after four years in the role. Before that she was at Grey with Maguire, and has also worked at BBH and Mother.
Pay replaces Simon Lloyd, who left for VMLY&R in April. She will join Dentsu in June as part of a brand new management team working alongside CEO Jessica Tamsedge and CSO Theo Izzard-Brown, who both joined from McCann UK this month.
At Headspace, Pay’s work ranged from a Netflix series on meditation to podcasts and partnerships with brands including Nike, Disney and Microsoft, as well as influencers including John Legend and Raheem Sterling.
Pay will lead a creative department of around 100 across Dentsu Creative’s offices in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Newcastle.
She said: “This is my broadest, most challenging role yet. An unmissable creative opportunity to flex my experience across so many disciplines, at scale. To get to love and develop the Dentsu Creative team, with two people that I respect so much, is a dream.”
Tamsedge said: “Dentsu creative is set to be an unrivalled creative force, building brands in places people choose to spend their time. Few creative leaders have the breadth of experience and generosity of spirit to bring together such a diverse creative community. In Headspace, Caroline built the world’s most influential wellness brand and knows what it takes to get to great work at scale.”
Dentsu Creative has been through a lot of change recently, assembling new global leadership team after merging the international and Japanese divisions and the related departures of CEO Wendy Clark and CCO Fred Levron, plus a change of heart from Alex Hesz who had signed up to be CSO but decided to remain at DDB.
With three new faces in place, the UK leadership team has plenty to do in terms of establishing the agency as a player in the UK market.
