Boss of London ad champion quits after losing crown to French rival
The boss of WPP is to step down months after the British advertising behemoth lost its crown to a French rival.
Mark Read will leave after more than three decades at WPP, including seven years as chief executive. He will continue in the role until the end of the year while the board searches for his successor.
Mr Read's departure, though long-expected in the industry, comes at a turbulent time for WPP. The London-based group, which employs around 110,000 people worldwide, last year lost its title as the world's largest ad company by revenues to French rival Publicis.
Meanwhile, its two other largest rivals – Omnicom and Interpublic – have agreed to merge in a $30bn (£22bn) deal that will further erode WPP's dominance.
The British company is also grappling with industry-wide turmoil sparked by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), which threatens to upend the work of ad agencies.
This has compounded the challenge posed by tech giant such as Google and Meta, which have grown their share of the advertising market in a direct threat to traditional holding groups.
Mr Read's tenure has been dominated by efforts to simplify WPP, which had ballooned into a sprawling network of companies under his predecessor Sir Martin Sorrell, who left the company he founded following allegations of misconduct, which he has always denied.
As chief executive, Mr Read oversaw the merging of a number of agencies while selling off some non-core businesses, including the £2.5bn sale of a 60pc stake in market research group Kantar.
More recently, the ad boss has also vowed to invest heavily in AI, pumping £300m into the technology this year and investing in generative AI startup Stability AI.
Declining shareholder value
However, WPP's growth has ground to a halt in recent years and the company's share price has more than halved during Mr Read's tenure, pushing its market value below £6bn. Shares fell a further 2pc after his departure was announced.
Alex DeGroote, a media analyst, said: 'The company is much simpler today than it was when he came on board as chief executive.'
But he added: 'There's just a feeling of the company having lost a lot of ground to the likes of Publicis, so I can't honestly say that he will be remembered as having delivered immense shareholder value.'
Mr Read's future has been in doubt since Philip Jansen, the former BT boss, was appointed as WPP chairman at the beginning of the year.
Mr Jansen said Mr Read had 'played a central role in transforming the company into a world leader in modern marketing services'.
Mr Read said: 'After seven years in the role, and with the foundations in place for WPP's continued success, I feel it is the right time to hand over the leadership of this amazing company.
'I am excited to explore the next chapter in my life and can only thank all the brilliant people I have been lucky enough to work with over the last 30 years, and who have made possible the enormous progress we have achieved together.'
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