Advertising Age reported the White men insiders predicted to succeed WPP CEO Mark Read were passed over in favor of a White woman outsider. Hopefully, Cindy Rose won’t be affected by the White holding company’s gender pay gap issues—or the sexual harassment historically prevalent at its White advertising agencies.
Opining on Rose’s appointment, a consultant ridiculously stated, “We’ll hear a lot of the same old tropes about the death of creativity, but the ship has sailed and tech will be at the center of corporate strategy.” Death of creativity?! Rose was preceded by Read and Sir Martin Sorrell. The creative ship sank decades ago.
Read claimed he’d stick around to help with the search for his replacement. Now that Rose has been named, will Read pull the ripcord on his golden parachute?
If Rose leads a WPP turnaround, she’ll inspire a new term: Roserrection.
WPP’s new CEO—what the appointment signals and behind the search
By Ewan Larkin
Cindy Rose’s appointment as the new CEO of WPP underscores technology as the backbone of the beleaguered agency group’s future direction, according to multiple industry insiders.
“We’ll hear a lot of the same old tropes about the death of creativity, but the ship has sailed and tech will be at the center of corporate strategy,” said Peter Grossman, U.S. regional lead for consultancy Flock Associates, about the move.
Rose, chief operating officer of Microsoft’s global enterprise business, will officially take the reins at the world’s second-largest agency company on Sept. 1, with CEO Mark Read staying on through the end of the year to support the transition, WPP announced Thursday.
Rose and WPP strongly emphasized creativity in the announcement, but her tenure at Microsoft is both significant and telling. By appointing a leader with a background in tech and software—and little to no traditional marketing experience—the holding company’s board “clearly would like to play into their ambition to scale and monetize” WPP Open, an AI operating system backed by annual investments of $318 million, said Jay Pattisall, VP and principal analyst at Forrester.
The incoming CEO’s key challenge will be integrating tech in a way that maintains WPP’s foundation as a marketing services business, added Pattisall. “That’s a subtle but significant shift,” he said.
WPP has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Open, and consultants said they expected the holding company to lean further into licensing Open under Rose’s purview. At Microsoft, she helps companies use digital technology and AI to drive business transformation, WPP stated in its announcement.
Some industry veterans, however, remain skeptical of WPP’s tech ambitions.
“Much is made of WPP’s moves in technology and AI around WPP Open, but I’m not convinced that agencies can build a SaaS-type business in competition with software companies like Adobe,” said Martin Sorrell, executive chairman at S4 Capital and founder of WPP.
There are plenty of other challenges beyond scaling Open. Rose’s announcement comes a day after WPP issued a profit warning, citing reduced client spending amid economic uncertainty and a slowdown in net new business. WPP has been losing business to rivals, including last month’s loss of Mars’ $1.7 billion global media account to Publicis Groupe.
Industry insiders seem bullish on Rose’s chances. She may be a fresh face, but as a non-executive director on WPP’s board since 2019, she’s familiar with the company’s recent internal transformation, including a slew of mergers and consolidations. She also has experience in various areas that WPP is looking to bring closer together under Open.
“She ticks all the boxes: media, content, data and tech,” said Ryan Kangisser, chief strategy officer at consultancy MediaSense, adding that Rose’s prior role as chief operating officer signals a shift in focus for WPP. The agency group already has “enough people in the business who have the vision and the strategy, she just needs to implement it,” he said.
One WPP exec said Rose was a different type of executive than Mark Read, calling her “energetic” and “client-obsessed.”
Given her lack of marketing experience, Rose’s appointment carries some initial risks, said Michael Kassan, founder of 3C Ventures. Still, he called WPP’s bet on her—and tech and transformation—a worthy gamble.
“Do I think it’s a short-term win in the new business tables? No. Do I think, long-term, it’s a net positive? Yes,” he said.
WPP shares today edged up 1.1% to 433.40 pence in London trading, a muted response to the naming of a new CEO. This came after shares tumbled nearly 19% on July 9 to their lowest level since 2009 after WPP revealed disappointing second-quarter results and lower full-year revenue guidance.
Inside the search
WPP had been looking outside the company—particularly in the tech sector—for a successor, according to a person familiar with the process. Multiple executives said the search started before Read announced his departure in June, though it wasn’t immediately clear how serious those efforts were.
WPP inquired about the interest of Wendy Clark, the former global CEO of Dentsu International, people close to the situation told Ad Age. The holding company also held discussions with internal candidates, including Jon Cook and Devika Bulchandani, the global CEOs of VML and Ogilvy, respectively, according to people familiar with the matter. WPP Media CEO Brian Lesser, who has been overseeing a restructuring of the media network, is believed to have been in consideration too, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Lesser and Clark couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Cook declined to comment. Bulchandani declined to comment on the discussions, but in a statement said, “Cindy has the perfect blend of experience for WPP as we look to the future.”
WPP declined to comment on the candidates in the search.
WPP focused on five key priorities in its CEO search, according to a memo to shareholders from Chairman Philip Jansen obtained by Ad Age. They included “technology and AI acumen,” “marketing and client credibility,” “U.S. market focus,” “outright leadership and cultural change agent” and “operational excellence and performance management.”
Jansen said in the memo that, given “the critical importance of the U.S. market to WPP’s success,” the new CEO had to have significant experience and understanding of the national landscape. (Read has said previously that WPP has considered moving the company’s present London primary stock market listing to the U.S.)
Rose holds both British and American citizenship and will be based in London and New York. She doesn’t, however, have a traditional marketing background. In the memo, Jansen wrote that “while not necessarily from the advertising industry itself, the CEO must be deeply marketing-aware and capable of engaging credibly with the CEOs and CMOs of our largest global clients.” He added: “They need to understand our clients’ businesses.”
More reactions to WPP naming Cindy Rose as CEO
Rose will be the first female CEO of a major agency holding company, a decision that was widely applauded by the industry. Accenture Song, the world’s largest agency company by revenue, will also have a female CEO as of Sept. 1, when Ndidi Oteh succeeds David Droga.
“I appreciate the symbolism of a female leader at the helm of WPP, especially at a time when DEI frameworks are being openly dismissed in the U.S.,” said Alkisti Stolp, a former executive at Wunderman Thompson and later VML.
Stolp, however, added that Rose’s corporate background “feels far removed from our industry’s creative core.” An agency executive who works with Microsoft added that Rose is far more focused on sales than marketing. While some might view those as potential limitations, an executive at a WPP agency pushed back on such criticisms.
“The most creative organization in the world is Disney,” the WPP agency executive said, referencing Rose’s 15 years at The Walt Disney Co. earlier in her career. The person added that, internally, there’s already been discussion about becoming more of a sales-driven organization—suggesting Rose may be more philosophically aligned with WPP than critics assume.
“There’s a lot of similarity,” the executive said.
Contributing: Garett Sloane, Bradley Johnson, and Lindsay Rittenhouse
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