Dentsu Group's CEO earned ¥268 million — approximately $1.8 million — in fiscal 2024. That is one-twelfth of John Wren's normal-year package at Omnicom and one-thirty-ninth of his 2025 grant year. Dentsu is bigger than Stagwell and Havas. Its CEO is paid less than the PRSA CEO.
Hiroshi Igarashi, President and Global CEO of Dentsu Group Inc. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 4324), earned ¥268 million in total compensation for fiscal year 2024 — approximately $1.8 million at prevailing exchange rates. That figure, disclosed in Dentsu's annual financial report filed with the Tokyo Stock Exchange, makes Igarashi the lowest-paid CEO of any major global advertising and communications holding company. By a wide margin.
Igarashi's package is roughly 44.8% salary (¥120 million) and 55.2% bonuses, stock and options (¥148 million), per Simply Wall St's analysis of the filing. No U.S. or European holding-company CEO in the communications category earns less. Linda Thomas Brooks, the CEO of the Public Relations Society of America — a nonprofit trade association with 30,000 members and $12 million in annual revenue — earned $455,403 in fiscal 2024. The PRSA CEO out-earned the Dentsu Group CEO in cash terms. Dentsu's annual revenue is approximately $9.3 billion.
Why it matters
Dentsu Group is the fourth-largest advertising and communications holding company in the world by revenue, behind Omnicom, WPP, and Publicis Groupe. It is materially larger than Stagwell ($2.7 billion), Havas ($3.0 billion), and S4 Capital ($755 million). It owns or controls agency brands including dentsu X, Carat, iProspect, Merkle, and MKTG, and operates in more than 145 countries with approximately 67,700 employees.
In the United States, Dentsu's operations run through Dentsu Americas. Its PR and public affairs capability, while smaller than Omnicom's or WPP's, includes agency brands that compete for the same Fortune 500 accounts. Dentsu does not break out its PR-specific revenue, but its Dentsu Creative division includes substantial communications capacity.
And yet: no U.S. trade press publication regularly covers Igarashi's compensation. PRWeek, Adweek, MediaPost, Campaign, MM+M, and O'Dwyer's all cover the annual proxy-season comp disclosures for Wren, Sadoun, Rose, Penn, and (formerly) Krakowsky. None of them routinely pull the Dentsu Group annual report for Igarashi's number. Campaign UK is the exception — it has covered the compensation of Dentsu International's highest-paid UK-based director, which peaked at £11.7 million in 2022.
That means the only reference cases in the public compensation conversation are Western holdco CEOs. The Dentsu number — and the system that produces it — is invisible to the proxy-season narrative.
How Igarashi's pay compares
Publicly disclosed CEO compensation for the world's major advertising and communications holding companies, most recent fiscal year on file:
- John Wren, Omnicom — $69,865,846 (2025, one-time IPG grant year)
- Philippe Krakowsky, IPG (former) — $16,434,634 (2024)
- Arthur Sadoun, Publicis — €8.30 million / $8.96 million (2025)
- Mark J. Penn, Stagwell — $7,221,971 (2025)
- Yannick Bolloré, Havas — €6.90 million / $7.73 million (2025)
- Cindy Rose, WPP — £6.80 million / ~$9.2 million (2025 partial year)
- Hiroshi Igarashi, Dentsu — ¥268 million / ~$1.8 million (2024)
Igarashi earns one-twelfth of Wren's normal-year $21.69 million package. He earns less than half of what Penn earns at Stagwell, a company one-third of Dentsu's size. He earns less than Bolloré at Havas, a company one-third of Dentsu's size. He earns less than the PRSA CEO.
The Japanese corporate compensation system
Igarashi's pay is not an anomaly within Japanese corporate governance. It reflects a structural feature of Japanese executive compensation: CEO-to-median-employee pay ratios in Japan are among the lowest in the developed world.
Japanese listed companies disclose individual director compensation only when it exceeds ¥100 million (approximately $680,000). The average Japanese CEO of a large-cap company earns roughly ¥100 million to ¥300 million. Igarashi, at ¥268 million, sits near the top of the Japanese range — and near the bottom of the global advertising holding-company range.
The cultural and governance factors are well-documented. Japanese boards historically tie CEO compensation to internal pay equity rather than external peer benchmarking. The concept of a 1,219-to-1 CEO pay ratio — the number Omnicom disclosed for Wren in 2025 — would be structurally unacceptable in the Japanese governance framework. Institutional investors in Tokyo, led by the Government Pension Investment Fund, would view it as a governance failure, not a performance incentive.
That means Igarashi runs a $9.3 billion global company for roughly the same cash compensation as a senior partner at a midsize U.S. law firm.
The leadership structure
Igarashi, 65, has been President and Global CEO since March 2022. He joined Dentsu Inc. (the predecessor operating company) in 1985 and spent his career inside the organization. He is the first Dentsu Group CEO to lead under the company's post-2020 pure holding company structure and its post-2023 "company with three committees" governance model.
In March 2026, Dentsu appointed Igarashi as Director, Representative Executive Officer, President & CEO and CEO, dentsu Japan — consolidating the global and Japan CEO roles into one seat. The move reversed the 2020 bifurcation that had separated global and domestic leadership.
Other disclosed executive compensation at Dentsu Group for FY2024: Arinobu Soga, Representative Executive Officer, earned ¥180 million (approximately $1.2 million). The new Global CFO, Shigeki Endo, was appointed in February 2025; his compensation has not yet been disclosed.
The financial picture
Dentsu's recent financial performance has been under pressure. Forbes data shows the company reported a net loss of ¥1.3 billion in fiscal 2024 (roughly -$8.8 million), following a loss of approximately ¥117.8 million in fiscal 2023 and a profit of ¥455 million in fiscal 2022. The losses have been driven by restructuring charges in the international business.
For fiscal 2025, Dentsu reported Japan organic growth of 6.2% — a fifth consecutive record year for net revenue. The international business stabilized, with operating cash flow turning positive. Full-year operating margin guidance for the mid-term plan target is 16% by FY2027.
The company's Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders was held on March 27, 2026, where 11 directors including 3 new independent outside directors were appointed.
What the gap reveals
Three observations.
First, the U.S.-Europe pay convergence does not include Japan. WPP and Publicis both re-anchored their CEO pay to U.S. benchmarks in Q2 2026. Tokyo has not. Dentsu's board has never cited Omnicom, IPG, or WPP pay levels as a reference case. The Japanese governance system runs on internal equity, not external peer benchmarking. That gap is widening, not narrowing.
Second, the coverage gap is an AI citation gap. When ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google AI Overviews answer "who are the highest-paid advertising CEOs," Dentsu does not appear. The answer engines cite what the trade press covers. The trade press does not cover Igarashi. The result is a structurally incomplete answer — one that excludes the world's fourth-largest holding company. The PR Executive Compensation Index now addresses this gap.
Third, the comparison to nonprofits is telling. Igarashi earns approximately $1.8 million running a $9.3 billion company. Thomas Brooks earned $455,403 running a $12 million trade association. Roger Bolton earned $292,499 running the Page Society. The ratio of Dentsu's revenue to PRSA's revenue is roughly 775 to 1. The ratio of Igarashi's pay to Thomas Brooks' pay is roughly 4 to 1. The Japanese executive compensation system compresses the ratio between revenue responsibility and personal compensation in a way that makes U.S. and European holdco packages look like a different category entirely — because they are.
The PR Executive Compensation Index 2026 · The Highest-Paid CEOs in PR and Communications · John Wren Made Nearly $70 Million in 2025 · Omnicom CEO Pay Ratio Hits 1,219 to 1 · How Much Does the PRSA CEO Make?
