Mark Ritson asks after Cindy Rose’s first investor call at the helm of WPP, whether her brutally honest assessment of its struggles showed leadership – or a lack of strategy.
Before I start, a caveat. I appreciate this is an unpleasant, potentially premature question, but it needs to be asked, given the shitshow of an investor call that took place last week. I was stunned by its tone and content. Stunned. And even more surprised, no one really picked up on it over the weekend, and some have even praised the approach.
This wasn’t just standard city handwringing from the WPP CEO; Cindy Rose went beyond correctional concern straight for the jugular of the very company she is meant to be healing.
“The media business… had lost its way.”
And WPP’s recent performance was “unacceptable.”
Rose was “taking action to address this.”
And in case anyone listening had not already clocked the disaster theme: “The numbers are simply not where we would like them to be.”
Rose reminded her audience that “it wasn’t that long ago that WPP was market leader in terms of organic growth,” with the wistful nostalgia usually reserved exclusively for Manchester United fans.
During the call, Rose worked hard to position WPP as a forward-thinking leader in artificial intelligence, carefully threading the line between relevance and panic. But watching a forty-year-old holding company suddenly discovering AI in late 2025 is not inspiring. In fact, it’s unnerving. It’s the digital equivalent of watching your grandfather learn to text - technically commendable, but further proof that he missed something important while the world moved on. The agency sector had four years to take AI seriously after the launch of ChatGPT.
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Four whole years.
WPP spent those years watching its stock price sink and clients slip away. Now, with business in freefall, AI has become the answer to everything.
That is not a strategy.
At best, it is a distracting orange life raft dropped quickly into the water without anyone on board it.
To be fair to Rose, the iceberg is real. Third-quarter net revenues dropped an alarming 5.9%, with like-for-like annual revenues set to decline by 5.5% to 6%, even worse than the previous forecast. Client losses, the ulcer that gnaws at every holding company, have also been brutal, with major accounts like Mars and Bayer grabbing their coats. Add to this a revision of profit margins to around 13%, below the low end of previous guidance, and WPP has left the relative comfort of “challenging times” and officially entered the flashing red stage of “danger zone.”
All this bad news has taken its toll on WPP’s valuation. The holding company’s share price has crashed by 63% in the last 12 months, leaving its market capitalization teetering around £3bn, a catastrophic fall from its 2017 high of £24bn. Once the lion of the FTSE 100, WPP is now at real risk of being booted off the safari.
Rose is right to call for change.
However, as the leader of a company under enormous pressure, she must be mindful that while criticism may resonate well with investors, it surely makes things worse among two more important audiences: WPP clients and its own beleaguered employees.
For besieged staff, Rose’s words are an existential gut-punch.
Internally, WPP’s culture is already miserable. Results are down and cuts are imminent. But when your new CEO tells the world, “Our recent performance is unacceptable and we are taking action to address this” doesn’t really rally the troops.
It’s worth remembering and repeating that WPP has some of the best talent in the marketing universe. And with the likes of Ogilvy and VML, brands of genuine heft and reputation. But these things work against you when leadership becomes critical. Talent leaves. Brands become a potent place for discord and depression. Things fall apart.
And then there are the clients who invest millions with WPP. Cindy Rose knew they would read her comments, right? Every senior marketer on the planet was listening last week as the boss of the company that handles their marketing communications described WPP’s offer as “not good enough.”
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Clients don’t want a partner waving a red flag and bemoaning how bad they are at stuff. They get that enough in their own offices. They’re buying creative firepower, optimism and growth. They got the opposite last week from Cindy Rose. And the subsequent reporting of her comments sent miserable soundbites of failure and doom bouncing around the marketing world for days. It’s bad enough when a client thinks its agency is guilty of “unacceptable performance,” but it’s a whole new level of shit when the CEO of the agency declares it unprompted to everyone. Imagine being a client with most of your dollars tied up with WPP for 2026.
How would you feel?
Last week, we saw a failure of communications and leadership from the leader of one of the biggest communications companies in the world. With more tact, strategy and CEO sensitivity it would have been entirely possible to signal change and improvement without sticking the boot in so badly to your own people. Turn “The media business had lost its way,” into “We’re repositioning WPP Media to lead in data-driven creativity and AI, building on our legacy of innovation.”
Instead of “I acknowledge that our recent performance is unacceptable,” why not, “We’re already taking bold steps to energize performance and build the next chapter for WPP”?
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“The numbers are simply not where we would like them to be” could easily have been, “We have a clear mandate to improve and the team to deliver fresh growth.”
Better yet, highlight what’s working, the upside, the new vision.
Instead of nostalgia for “when WPP was market leader,” evoke the excitement of transformation: “We’re entering a new era for WPP, with our strongest team yet, and we’re focused on creating sustainable growth for our clients and shareholders.”
The gravity of WPP’s predicament isn’t in doubt. Rose-tinted platitudes would be an insult, not a solution. But at the exact moment the business is fighting for its spot in the FTSE 100 and searching for relevance in the age of digital disruption, what’s needed is a vision that signals change, unites the troops and reassures clients. Last week, Cindy Rose did the opposite. So I ask you sincerely: does she know what she is doing?
WPP
WPP plc is a British multinational communications, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered in London, England. It was...