17539: WPP CPO WTF.

More About Advertising reported on impending layoffs at WPP, spotlighting the new WPP Media Chief People Officer, who will likely be among key players executing the latest RIF.

 

The content closed by asking: Is there a People job in [Adland] that doesn’t really mean less people?

 

That’s a good question, prompting a Google search to define the C-suite function. According to M&A Executive Search, CPO responsibilities include:

 

• Shaping organizational culture and employee experience

 

• Developing DE&I (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) programs

 

• Creating leadership development initiatives

 

• Driving employee engagement strategies

 

• Aligning the workforce with the company vision and values

 

• Building talent acquisition competitive advantages

 

• Fostering a sense of purpose and belonging

 

Okay, except no way can a new CPO shape organizational culture and employee experience at a global flaming dumpster that is burning out of control.

 

DEIBA+ programs have already been abandoned.

 

Leadership development cannot commence until after dealing with honcho redundancies, resignations, and restructurings.

 

Employee engagement strategies likely involve mandated rah-rah events.

 

Expressing the company vision and values won’t happen before WPP CEO Cindy Rose hatches and articulates the grand scheme. For now, it’s chirping crickets.

 

Talent acquisition competitive advantages are trumped by talent termination.

 

Sense of purpose and belonging? Nonsense of purpose and belonging would be a more appropriate term.

 

In short, given WPP’s current death-spiraling direction, the CPO role could be handled via AI—or eliminated entirely.

 

WPP sets sail for another round of job cuts

 

By Stephen Foster

 

WPP is reportedly embarking on another round of job cuts and newly-hired chief people officer at WPP Media Darren Minshall looks as though he’s been hired to lead the charge. Or maybe retreat. WPP Media employs about 40,000 people.

 

Like all such execs Minshall [above], who’s worked at numerous companies including, back in the day, Havas and MullenLowe, says the right things including “AI isn’t the hard part. Leading people through it is” and “AI should improve work, not blindly replace it” which may reassure some WPP Media folk although the embattled holding company, first under Mark Read and now under Cindy Rose, has made no secret that it sees AI as the secret sauce to put it back on the road to growth.

 

So will Minshall be the grim reaper, on the lines of George Clooney in the movie Up in the Air, where he plays corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham or someone to bring a little balance to the seemingly AI-obsessed holding company?

 

WPP is now divided into creative, media, production and commerce and most people expect its creative agencies to bear the brunt of tech-driven changes. When JWT, Y&R and Wunderman were lumped together with VML it was said to be the biggest creative agency in the world with about 30,000 people. WPP also has Ogilvy of course, which seems to be staying above the fray.

 

But the old GroupM media operation comprising EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker was pretty substantial and numerous too and, although its fortunes have recovered to a degree, it has still to return to winning ways for the world’s really big media accounts, most of which are at Publicis with some others at Omnicom.

 

Is there a People job in adland that doesn’t really mean less people?