Ogilvy Appoints New Global Finance and People Leadership

Ogilvy today announced new members of its global leadership team with the appointments of Stacey Ryan-Cornelius as global chief financial officer and Jag Dhanji as global chief people officer. 

“Stacey is not only a seasoned leader with vast experience and creative commercial acumen, but also a leader experienced in business transformation and growth. We’re thrilled to have her back at Ogilvy as we focus on being the best platform and partner for growth, delivering speed to value for our clients with world-class creative thinking,” said Andy Main, global CEO of Ogilvy. “When we grow our business, and that of our clients, it is because of Ogilvy’s ability to attract, nurture, and retain the best talent in the industry. Jag’s experience working across fast-moving organisations and industries, and the passion she has shown for building a culture at Ogilvy that empowers people to do their best work, will be an amazing asset to our team.”

“As we think about the future of the industry, Andy’s vision coupled with Ogilvy’s world-class creativity and range of capabilities is a compelling proposition for our clients. I’m really excited to be coming back to Ogilvy as it embarks on the next stage of its evolution,” Stacey added. “I’m also looking forward to partnering with Andy, Jag, and other leaders to drive meaningful, and lasting progress when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Jag noted: “We are living through a unique moment where we are completely rethinking the way we live and work, which makes this opportunity so invigorating. Ogilvy has some of the best creative and strategic talent in the world and I’m excited to work with my colleagues across the globe to ensure that Ogilvy remains a ‘company of giants’ with a culture that is innovative, inclusive, and fun.”

Stacey succeeds Steve Goldstein, who is retiring from the business and will stay on for a transition period through early 2021; Jag takes over for Brian Fetherstonhaugh. Stacey and Jag will both report to Andy Main as well as WPP chief financial officer, John Rogers, and WPP chief people officer, Jacqui Canney, respectively; they will also join the WPP Finance and People leadership teams. 

Stacey most recently served as global chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Geometry Global, WPP’s end to end creative commerce agency, where she was a driving force behind the agency’s transformation. In addition to putting people and systems in place to enable operational efficiency and sustainable agency growth, Stacey played an important role in the deployment of a distinct and advanced technology platform, Living CommerceTM, to establish a new way of working that is agile, collaborative, and reflects the needs of today’s modern marketers.

Prior to that, Stacey was global chief financial officer of WPP Health & Wellness where she spent 15 months restructuring the portfolio, executing key transformation initiatives, and delivering financial and strategic direction across 64 operating units in the US, Canada, EMEA and Asia. 

Stacey originally joined Ogilvy in 1999 and held various regional and global leadership roles, including serving as the company’s Worldwide Controller until 2018. She began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers where she consulted on financial statement audits, mergers and acquisitions and IPO’s for a range of major multinational advertising and publishing clients from Ziff-Davis Publishing and Simon & Schuster to Viacom’s MTV Network and PBS’s Children's Television Workshop.

Stacey has been featured by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the 75 Most Powerful Women in Business and is often called upon to speak about diversity and inclusion, and the importance of increased representation across all levels of the marketing and communications industry. 

Jag Dhanji joined Ogilvy in October 2017 as chief talent officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Jag is a seasoned leader that has commercial experience working across a number of international companies and industries including Diageo, Vodafone and Costa. She has worked with diverse teams including the Global Marketing and Innovation team at Diageo, the India leadership team at Vodafone, as well as the International team at Costa. 

Jag has a passion for building enduring and sustainable organisations - throughout her career she has helped organisations to evolve and grow, building strong diverse talent pipelines and developed the key asset of any organisation, their people. Jag has led teams worldwide and has worked and lived in Europe, South Africa and India.