Lindsay Patterson, WPP’s chief people officer, will be leaving her role in May.
She has been with the holdco for a whopping 16 years and stepped into the chief people officer role in January last year, moving from the chief client officer role she had held since 2018.
WPP is looking for Pattison’s successor and hopes to announce them before Pattison’s departure.
The next global CPO will be the fourth WPP has appointed in six years, following Pattison, Jennifer Remling who held the role between 2021 and 2023, and Jacqui Canney who was in the role from 2019 to 2021.
WPP’s CEO said in a memo to the holdco’s top brass that she had been a “force in our industry”.
Pattison said in the memo, seen by Campaign, that she was taking a bit of time to “slow down”.
“As many of you have experienced first-hand, I tend to do everything at a hundred miles an hour. Although that’s taken me a long way, at some point it’s probably sensible to slow down for a bit and take some time to figure out what’s next.
“Mark and I started talking seriously about me taking a break last year, but I also wanted to make sure we delivered on certain priorities absolutely critical for the future success of the business.”
These priorities included “bringing people back to the office environment more frequently to learn, create and collaborate… investing in AI skills and the deployment of WPP Open; and ensuring we recruit and retain colleagues who represent the communities in which we live and the clients we serve – which not only reflects our values but is simply good for business”.
Earlier this year, WPP announced that it would be setting a new global policy bringing staff back to the office four days per week. It has also been on a crash course of merging agencies, including Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R to create VML, AKQA and Grey, and Hill & Knowlton, BCW and more to create PR and comms agency Burson.
Pattison said that she will remain a shareholder in WPP but will be taking some time out of work.
