DPZ's Own CEO Walked Out the Door With Its Three Biggest Clients

DPZ, founded in Brazil in 1968, was called the country's 'mother of all agencies' — it wrote the Volkswagen Beetle's classic local ads and invented the signature orange that became Itaú bank's brand identity. By the 2010s it had merged into DPZ&T under holding company Publicis Groupe, with Eduardo Simon running it as CEO since 2015.

In August 2021, Simon resigned along with creative chief Rafael Urenha and media VP Paulo Ilha to found a new independent agency, Galeria — with Publicis Groupe itself taking a minority stake in the startup. Within days, three of DPZ&T's largest and longest-held accounts, McDonald's, Itaú and Natura, followed the departing leadership out the door.

DPZ&T's own parent company had effectively backed both sides: the agency that lost the clients and the one that gained them. The exodus left DPZ&T stripped of the accounts most tied to its identity — including the Itaú orange it had created decades earlier — while its former leaders opened Galeria's doors already holding the business.

New CEO Fernando Diniz, a journalist by training with no prior agency-leadership background, was brought in to rebuild. Revenue collapsed through 2021-2022 before recovering: DPZ posted 48% growth in 2023, 31.5% in 2024 and 24.5% in 2025, retaining Electrolux, Ypê, Pizza Hut and Renault and winning new clients including L'Oréal and Eli Lilly.