Mark Read
Outgoing CEO, WPP (handover support through year-end 2025) at wpp
Outgoing CEO of WPP, the London-listed advertising holding company. Read led WPP from September 2018 until stepping down on August 31, 2025, succeeded by former Microsoft executive Cindy Rose. His seven-year tenure ended amid a steep share-price decline and the loss of major accounts including Mars and Coca-Cola to rival Publicis.
Read’s seven-year run as WPP CEO began as a stabilization mandate after Sir Martin Sorrell’s abrupt 2018 exit and ended as a turnaround mandate handed off to someone else. He spent the middle of his tenure consolidating the agency portfolio (the VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson mergers), cutting debt, and rebuilding WPP’s data and technology stack. The final 18 months were defined by a different story: client losses to Publicis at the top of the roster (Mars, Coca-Cola), a profit warning, and a share price that closed his tenure roughly half of where it began. Cindy Rose, a Microsoft veteran already on WPP’s board, takes over the AI-and-restructuring agenda Read was unable to finish.