Dominique Bergantino

Co-President and MD, Havas CX helia

Dominique Bergantino is Co-President and Managing Director of Havas’ flagship customer engagement and data agency, Havas CX helia.Since joining the agency – which sits at the heart of Havas’ global customer experience network, Havas CX – in 2019, Bergantino has overseen a remarkable spell of sustained growth and new business success. Under her leadership, the agency has won some of the largest customer engagement accounts in the UK, including Compare the Market, Volkswagen Group, Lloyds Banking Group and Aesop – growing revenue by more than 20% in 2021 alone. In 2022, the agency was named by Campaign Magazine as a runner-up at its Agency of the Year awards.Prior to Havas CX helia, Bergantino was Managing Partner at sister creative agency Havas London. With more than two decades’ experience, spanning senior roles both agency and client-side and across a wide range of above- and below-the-line disciplines, she is one of the industry’s very few genuinely integrated, channel agnostic agency leaders.Half Indian, half Irish, and having left school with no formal qualifications, Bergantino has pushed boundaries and broken barriers throughout her career. Starting as a PA for British Airways, she quickly worked her way up and into its marketing team – before being poached to work on its loyalty account by fledgling agency Carlson Marketing.She then spent spells in Dubai – helping to establish OgilvyOne in the market and running Emirates’ loyalty programme – and Germany – where she had her son and worked part-time, before it was a common policy, within Siemens’ marketing team. Returning to the UK and OgilvyOne, she subsequently led accounts including Public Health England, American Express and British Airways – working on the Cannes-winning ‘Magic of Flying’ – before joining Havas in 2018.Bergantino is passionate about providing a ladder up for the next generation – particularly for people, like herself, from atypical and diverse backgrounds who might otherwise struggle to gain a foothold in the industry. She is also a keen advocate of levelling the playing field for working parents, and has pioneered flexible working practices and enhanced paternity policies within her agencies for the best part of two decades.