WPP taps Microsoft exec Rose to rebuild ad group
Rose has been on the board since 2019 and will take over from outgoing CEO Mark Read on Sept. 1, the company said, with Read departing four months earlier than expected.
Shares in the group, which fell to a 16-year low on Wednesday after it slashed its profit outlook, rose 2 per cent in early deals.
Rose has spent the last nine years in senior leadership positions at Microsoft, where she rose to Chief Operating Officer, Global Enterprise after formerly being head of its UK business. Prior to that she worked at Vodafone and Virgin Media.
WPP Chairman Philip Jansen said she had supported the digital transformation of large enterprises around the world - including embracing artificial intelligence to create new business models and revenue streams.
"Her expertise in this landscape will be hugely valuable to WPP as the industry navigates fundamental changes and macroeconomic uncertainty," he said.
Rose will take on a business reeling from the loss of some big accounts, a downturn in client spend, and fewer new business opportunities, which prompted the profit outlook cut that sent WPP shares down as much as 19 per cent on Wednesday.
WPP, which lost its crown as the world's biggest ad group to France's Publicis last year, is also grappling with the transformational impact of AI, which gives clients the tools to create and manage more of their own marketing campaigns.
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