Rohan Philips named chief client officer, MRCL, at Publicis Groupe

NEW YORK: Rohan Philips has built a career on three continents, and now he has a new title to match. Philips has started a new position as chief client officer, MRCL, at Publicis Groupe, working on-site from October 2026.

The promotion comes after a stretch of rapid movement inside the group. Philips joined Publicis Groupe in January 2024 as global chief solutions officer, a role he held until October 2026. His profile lists the new chief client officer post alongside the phrase “applied AI for marketing”, a sign of where the work is heading. The move puts him in the New York City metropolitan area, where the group’s profile places his tenure of two years and ten months.

Philips announced the move on LinkedIn, saying he is happy to share that he is starting a new position as chief client officer, MRCL, at Publicis Groupe.

The route to the top ran through some of the biggest names in global media. Before Publicis he spent two years and four months, from October 2021 to January 2024, as global president, Dentsu media product, at dentsu international in New York. Before that came four years and four months, from August 2017 to November 2021, as global chief product officer at iProspect. In both roles the brief was product: building the tools and platforms that agencies sell to clients.

The apprenticeship was served across the WPP and Publicis networks. Philips was vice president, [m]PLATFORM, at GroupM in Singapore from December 2016 to August 2017, a stint of nine months. Before that he spent four years and four months at Xaxis in Singapore, first as head of product and operations from October 2012 to December 2014, then as vice president, product and strategy, from January 2015 to January 2017. At Mediacom, part of GroupM and WPP, he was regional digital manager in Singapore from April 2011 to October 2012, a period of one year and seven months.

His career began in London. From May 2009 to April 2011 Philips was senior digital executive at Starcom MediaVest Group, part of Vivaki and Publicis Groupe, for two years. In other words, the man now taking a top client post at Publicis started his working life inside the same group.

The analysis is neat. Product people rarely get the client chair, and client people rarely understand product. Philips has spent much of his career on the first side of that divide, building platforms at Xaxis, iProspect and Dentsu, and then solutions at Publicis. A chief client officer who can explain what the technology does, and how it will be built, is a rare and useful animal when marketers are demanding proof that artificial intelligence can deliver. The step from solutions to clients looks like a natural one.

For Philips, it is a return to where he began, with 17 years of agency, platform and product experience behind him. For Publicis Groupe, it is a chance to put an engineer of solutions at the table where clients make their decisions.

From senior digital executive in London to chief client officer in New York, the climb has been long and steady. Now comes the part where the clients get to test it.