At the all-hands meeting, the holdco’s new CEO set out a vision built on three core principles – putting people first, winning for clients and harnessing the power of AI.
Cindy Rose
On Monday, September 1, Cindy Rose officially began her tenure as chief executive officer (CEO) of WPP, succeeding Mark Read after his seven years in the role.
In his final public remarks as CEO, Read acknowledged the “challenging environment” awaiting his successor and noted he would not “set out a strategy” for her, leaving the path forward in Rose’s hands.
Weeks later, Rose began to address those challenges, from new business pressures to strengthening internal culture and sharpening WPP’s client proposition, during her first global town hall, held at the company’s 3WTC campus in New York and streamed remotely to employees worldwide.
Her message was one of transformation, optimism and clarity, centered on three core principles: putting people first, winning for clients and harnessing WPP’s AI offerings.
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“This is a people business at its core,” Rose said during the town hall, making it clear that her top priority is to create a world-class employee experience. She described her goal as making WPP “the home for the world’s most exceptional talent,” emphasizing long-term career development and a supportive, growth-oriented environment.
She framed this moment as an inflection point – not just for the company, but for its people. “Priority number one will be to create an environment to help you grow as professionals,” she explained. In what she called a “cultural transformation,” Rose recognized the scale of the task ahead, but remained confident in the company’s ability to evolve and thrive.
The task of staff morale has already drawn significant attention within WPP, particularly since the holding company announced a return-to-office policy requiring employees to be in the office four days a week. At the time, anonymous sources told The Drum the decision had “left them reeling.” For now, the policy remains in place, with Rose stating that some work simply can’t be done “from a kitchen,” although she acknowledged it could be reviewed again in the future.
Sources have suggested that Rose’s team deliberately chose a more “intimate” setting than we’re used to seeing with WPP town halls, suggesting they “understand the optics” better than predecessors.
In February, Read attributed WPP’s struggles to the loss of major accounts such as Pfizer, Starbucks, L’Oréal, Uber and Walgreens, warning the impact would be most felt in the first half of the year.
Despite assuring analysts of a strong new business pipeline and increased review activity, claiming in April it had participated in up to 7,000 pitches, performance has remained lukewarm.
Recent losses include Mars’s $1.7bn media account, Coca-Cola’s $700m US media business and PayPal’s global media, all of which went to Publicis.
In a more positive turn, in August, WPP Media snatched Mastercard’s $180m global media account from Carat
Apparently, Rose has already been in conversation with WPP’s top 50 clients and is approaching recent client losses not as setbacks, but as “learning moments.” She underscored the importance of aligning every internal investment in culture, innovation and talent with delivering value to clients.
She was clear: “WPP should be famous for being completely client-obsessed.” That means not just listening to client needs, but “working together much more closely as one team to go the extra mile...to make them successful.”
While she has yet to unveil a formal commercial strategy, Rose’s directive is straightforward: the path to growth must be built on talent, culture and “relentless” focus on client success.
“If we execute well on these three core principles, we’ll offer our clients an unrivalled combination of passionate, talented people who care deeply about their success, a simpler client proposition and go-to-market powered by the best AI capabilities in the market. This is how we win!”
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Rose was unequivocal in her stance on artificial intelligence, saying: “AI is going to shape the future of WPP and our client relationships.” She urged all employees to embrace WPP Open, WPP’s proprietary AI platform, calling for “every laptop and phone [to] have WPP Open installed.”
AI is not optional any more, with the exec believing it is core to the company’s competitive edge. Rose wants every team member to become what she calls “AI superusers” and to begin managing AI agents just like they would manage human teammates. She emphasized that WPP’s expenditure on AI is not just about technology, but about transformation.
“We’ve made significant investments in building market-leading AI capabilities and solutions and we need to lead with these in every client conversation to deliver efficiency and quality to our clients and delight them with cutting-edge innovation, creativity and business outcomes.”
As she put it in a follow-up memo to all staff: “I believe the best of WPP is yet to come and I want to work together to write the next chapter in WPP’s history, a new WPP!”
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