Nigel Vaz, currently the senior vice president and managing director for Europe and global chief strategy officer at SapientNitro, will now lead both SapientNitro and Razorfish across EMEA.
His new job title will be EMEA chief executive for Razorfish and SapientNitro, effective immediately.
There will be a combined leadership team. The roles are yet to be confirmed. ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 understands there are no plans to make any redundancies as a result of the move.
There are also no current plans to merge the two agencies under a single brand. Staff were briefed on the changes this afternoon.
Razorfish, which has around 200 staff at its offices next to sister agency Fallon in Great Titchfield Street, will move to SapientNitro's existing offices in Spitalfields before the end of the year.
SapientNitro has around 1,000 staff in the UK. It houses between 400-500 people in Spitalfields. The remainder of SapientNitro staff work in its Battersea office or are based in-house with clients.
The move comes less than a month after Publicis Groupe announced the latest in a number of global restructures.
Publicis Groupe is planning on housing digital and tech experts from its Publicis.Sapient agencies such as SapientNitro and Razorfish within Publicis Communications agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi.
The initiative, branded Sapient Inside, will begin rolling out on 1 July and is part of the chief executive, Maurice Lévy’s, continuing push to break up company silos.
Vaz said: "As the scope and scale of what clients require from their agency partners continues to grow, it becomes paramount that those partners have access to the broadest possible set of capabilities, technology partnerships and leading intellectual property.
"We are excited to extend the strengths of Razorfish and SapientNitro and to create an integrated leadership structure that allows us to leverage the strength of the Publicis.Sapient platform to help our clients across EMEA transform in a digitally disrupted environment. We’re committed to ensuring that both brands remain strong and vibrant."
Guy Wieynk, the European chief executive of Publicis Worldwide, is leading the rollout of Sapient Inside, alongside Christian Oversohl, the managing director of SapientNitro for Asia-Pacific.
In a restructure in December, Publicis Groupe created four solutions hubs, including the digital arm Publicis.Sapient and Publicis Communications, which houses its advertising agencies.
Publicis Groupe bought SapientNitro’s parent group Sapient for £2.6 billion last year.
Shannon Denton, the global chief executive of Razorfish, added: "This move aligns with our international strategy and accelerates the growth of both brands and I look forward to partnering with Nigel to create continued success in EMEA."
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