Adweek published content on 5 challenges warranting immediate attention from new WPP CEO Cindy Rose.
The piece features viewpoints from industry analysts and former WPP executives—including Sir Martin Sorrell.
First, Sorrell’s opinion should be invalidated, as he’s arguably responsible for the mess Rose is now charged with cleaning up. The other ex-WPP honchos’ perspectives sound like resentment-soaked sour grapes.
As for the analysts, the next valuable insight they hatch will be the first and only.
Rose has just one major challenge: to ignore all the unsolicited Mad Mansplaining.
5 Challenges Facing New WPP CEO Cindy Rose
From a lack of strategy to the sinking stock price, the former Microsoft exec has her work cut out for her.
By Alison Weissbrot
Incoming WPP CEO Cindy Rose has a big job ahead when she steps into the role in September.
As the Microsoft exec takes the reins from Mark Read, who’s departing after seven years at the helm, she inherits a business in decline that’s struggling to keep pace with an industry in flux.
In addition to addressing WPP’s structural and financial problems—it issued a shock profit warning and downgraded its 2025 growth forecast last week—Rose must stave off continued client losses and turn around morale at its agencies.
Industry leaders agree that Rose has the AI and technology expertise needed to bring WPP into the future. But what’s most crucial is that she develops a clear vision for a business that’s lacked one for some time.
“Hopefully the WPP board are clear about what its new strategy is, as the current one has not delivered,” said Ajaz Ahmed, founder of Studio.One and former CEO of WPP agency AKQA.
1. Reviving WPP’s stock
As the leader of a public company, Rose will have to contend with shareholders impatient for WPP’s stock to bounce back from historic lows. This will be difficult in a sector that is “facing real pressure,” said Ahmed.
“Interest rates are still high. Budgets are tight. Platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Google offer increasingly sophisticated ad tools that bypass agencies,” he said. “Consulting firms and independent agencies are winning share with a more attractive value proposition.”
In that pressure cooker, Rose’s strategic decisions will, in large part, be dictated by the board’s end game: Does it want to create a real strategy for WPP’s future, or would it be better off selling the company for parts?
“There’s the financial engineering side—what will produce the most value for shareholders independent of the right strategy?” said Brian Wieser, principal at Madison and Wall. “Because the stock is so, so very low, it could very well be that the board would rather see some immediate benefits.”
Martin Sorrell, CEO of S4 Capital and former CEO of WPP for three decades, said it comes down to whether the business “would be better off being dismembered into its still standing constituent parts or consolidated elsewhere.”
“Companies that were once part of WPP, such as Kantar, VCCP, FGS, and Globant have thrived as independent companies,” Ahmed pointed out. “The question is, could WPP realize the value in some of its assets before it’s too late, or does it want to merge and consolidate its agencies further internally?”
2. Developing a clear strategy
If the board does want to pursue a future for WPP in this current state, Rose needs a clear strategy and point of view for the business—something observers agree has been lacking.
“The big concern for shareholders and employees isn’t just the structure; it’s the absence of a clear, credible plan,” Ahmed said. “For a while now, it’s felt like WPP has been making it up as it goes along.”
For Wieser, that challenge gets to the heart of an existential industry issue: “how do you organize a modern agency group, and what should the agency services industry look like?”
While Read merged agencies under WPP to streamline its unwieldy operations, he hasn’t gone as far as his peers in operating the company as a single brand. Instead, he’s touted the importance of agency brands as levers for attracting clients and talent, Wieser said.
But that approach has drawbacks for WPP, including adding “layers of non-billable overhead both at the central level and within the agencies,” as well as “tremendous duplication of services,” Ahmed said. “Ogilvy has become a holding company within a holding company, which isn’t exactly simplification.”
Wieser agreed that agency mergers weren’t a real strategy. “That was desperation,” he said. “There’s a recognition these will be loss-making entities on their own, so let’s do the bare minimum.”
Coming in as an industry outsider, Rose will have to quickly develop a point of view on the role of agency brands and identify the right structure to take WPP into the future.
“Being both a holding company and a client-facing brand at the same time as managing dozens of agency brands with their individual cultures, leadership teams, and operations is confusing, and this model hasn’t worked for WPP,” Ahmed said.
3. Making WPP Open pay off
Under Read, WPP invested millions of dollars into WPP Open, its internal AI platform. It will be Rose’s job to make that bet pay off—and set WPP up for an AI-powered future.
“The significant investment into WPP Open hasn’t yielded the growth that was hyped a couple of years ago,” Ahmed said.
According to Jay Pattisall, principal analyst at Forrester, WPP chose a tech executive with an AI background for exactly that reason: “The selection of Rose is designed, in part, to further commercialize WPP Open,” he said.
Ahmed agreed that Rose’s experience at Microsoft, which “hasn’t exactly been shy about reinventing themselves over the years,” will be useful in pushing WPP to adapt to automation.
But whether that’s enough to transform the legacy holding company’s business model remains to be seen.
“WPP is a services company, not a software company,” Pattisall agreed. “Modernizing WPP itself, as it reconciles with automation and change, will be no small task.”
“I’m not convinced that agencies can build a SaaS-type business in competition with software companies like Adobe,” Sorrell added.
4. Boosting morale
Rose is taking over a business where morale is low and client relationships are tenuous.
WPP has lost several major clients this year, including Mars and Coca-Cola. Meanwhile, ongoing layoffs and a botched return-to-work mandate have led to discontent and anxiety among staff.
Sorrell pointed to what he views as a misguided simplification strategy under Read, which collapsed brands like J. Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam, and Wunderman, as the reason WPP has lost “not only many talented leaders, but clients as a result too.”
Nick Emery, CEO of agency Jellyfish and a former WPP Media exec, believes Rose’s biggest challenge will be to “fight for, protect, and champion the many brilliant people who’ve given their all to the company—and to craft a strategy that makes them happier, drives growth for clients, and fully embraces the role of AI to fulfill the promise of technology.”
Rose’s attention here must be “24/7, laser-focused on the USA,” according to Sorrell, which is “undoubtedly the center of the client world and where WPP people are probably most demoralized.”
“You have to hope—if you’re hoping for good things for WPP—that she’s an excellent manager,” Wieser added. “That’s probably the single most important issue.”
5. Her outsider status
Rose’s industry outsider status could be a challenge or benefit, depending who you ask.
Ahmed described her as “a safe pair of hands” as “an internal candidate with an external vantage point.” Sorrell said she fits WPP board chairman Philip Jansen’s criteria as a technology and AI-forward executive.
But Wieser pointed out that in addition to this being her first CEO gig, her only ad industry experience has been through the vantage point of sitting on WPP’s board.
“You really haven’t actually lived and breathed the industry,” he said of Rose. “It’s plausible that your views on the industry might be incomplete.”
However, he added, “it can also mean fresh eyes, which is not a bad thing at all,” pointing to Michael Roth’s successful tenure at IPG.
What’s crucial is that Rose surrounds herself with executives that have “clarity of vision.”
“It’s going to come down to good management,” he said.
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