Mark Read is due to step down as WPP CEO at the end of this year, and from the company’s board.
Read has spent more 30 years with WPP, including seven as the CEO. No successor has been announced but WPP said the search is underway for Read’s replacement.
Philip Jansen, Chair of WPP, said: “On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Mark for his contributions not only as CEO but throughout his more than 30 years of leadership and service to the Company. During that time Mark has played a central role in transforming the Company into a world leader in modern marketing services, with deep AI, data and technology capabilities, global presence and unrivalled creative talent, setting WPP up well for longer-term success.
“We are pleased that Mark will continue to lead WPP as CEO until the end of the year, remaining focused on the execution of the Company’s growth strategy and supporting a smooth transition to his successor, once appointed.”
Read added: “WPP is an incredible company with over 100,000 talented and creative people, wonderful clients and partners, and an unmatched presence around the world. It has been an immense privilege to serve as its CEO for the past seven years.
“When I took on this role our mission was to build a simpler, stronger business, and put structure and new energy behind our creativity and performance, powered by world-leading technology. I am proud that our teams across the business have delivered that exceptionally well. Our clients today rate us more highly than ever before, we now work with four of the world’s five most valuable companies, and our revenues with our biggest clients have grown consistently.
“Our business starts with creativity, and I was delighted for our teams that last year we were once again named Creative Company of the Year at Cannes Lions. We have also positioned WPP at the forefront of the industry with our investments in AI and, with the full launch of WPP Open this year, we are now leading the way as AI transforms marketing. We have an exceptional leadership team and a secure financial position that allows us to face the future confidently and capture the opportunities ahead.
“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. I would also like to thank Phil and the rest of the Board for their steadfast support for me and the wider executive team, and I look forward to supporting them in the transition to my successor in the coming months.”
Read has been hitting the headlines in 2025 for a variety of different reasons. In January, Read led WPP to mandate its staff return to the office for at least four days per week starting in April.
“Spending more time together is important to all of us, and we are making a change to help that happen. From the beginning of April this year, the expectation across WPP will be that most of us spend an average of four days a week in the office,” he wrote in a note to staff.
“This doesn’t mean we’re going back to old ways of doing things. During the pandemic we all learned the value of greater flexibility in our working lives and of being trusted to balance work and personal commitments.
The move did not play out well with the holdco’s staff.
Speaking anonymously to UK trade title PRWeek, WPP employees said Read’s note “went down like a cup of cold sick” and staff “stopped working in stunned silence”.
“If one of our clients told us they were going to do this, the most junior consultant would talk them out of it. I guarantee this will be used as a ‘worst practice’ crisis/internal comms case study for years to come. Mark Read should not be head of a communications company, frankly,” they added.
Read then told PRWeek: “Listen, I know for some people this is going to be a change but we are going to introduce this new policy co-operatively. It doesn’t come in until April and we’ll use that time to talk to our people about how to implement it carefully and pragmatically.
“We appreciate that many people have responsibilities such as dropping their kids at school or caring for an elderly relative, and we’re going to continue much of the flexibility we’ve experienced over the last few years. That said, with many of our clients in the office three, four and increasingly five days a week, we think this is the right move for the long-term success of the company and people’s careers.”
More recently, Read told The Times tech business editor Katie Prescott at SXSW London there is “no doubt” there will be “fewer people involved” to do the work that advertising and media agencies carry out today.
“But I think there will be many, many more and many, many different things that people will do that will bridge that gap,” he said.
“New jobs will be created (as) innovation does ultimately create jobs.”
Read said that AI should not be solely viewed through a filter of efficiency.“We need to see it as an effectiveness game as well as an efficiency game,” he said. “It’s a way to work more quickly and more efficiently, but also to be more effective.”
WPP has been touting the abilities of its WPP Open AI platform and has rebranded its media buying arm GroupM to WPP Media, bringing it closer to the rest of the holdco for greater efficiency. The changes to what was GroupM promise to have quite seismic changes in the US and UK, but in Australia, CEO Aimee Buchanan, as well as agency CEOs Maria Grivas, Pippa Berlocher and Peter Vogel told B&T that the business was already functioning in a more unified fashion.
