Karen Blackett has been made president of WPP within the UK, persevering with her regular rise on the group the place she’s labored for practically 20 years.
Blackett is an enormous expertise and an enormous asset to WPP due to her standing within the UK enterprise group, her MBE, her consumer expertise and her stance on range. She has been promoted usually since she began work at WPP in 2004. Subsequent cease is definitely international.
Her promotion follows the current appointment of Rose Herceg and Michael Houston to president roles in Australia & New Zealand and the US respectively. A substitute for Blackett’s position as UK CEO of GroupM will likely be introduced quickly, however the UK nation supervisor position will not exist.
Blackett began her profession at CIA MediaNetwork within the early 90s, and her WPP profession started when the group purchased MediaCom (the place she was advertising director) in 2004. She was made chair of the company in 2016, turned WPP nation supervisor in 2018, and added the GroupM UK CEO title in 2020.
Blackett mentioned: “I took on the GroupM position within the first week of lockdown in 2020, with a give attention to guiding the enterprise by way of the pandemic and starting the transformation of GroupM within the UK. We’ve made large progress and achieved a lot in these two and a half years and I’m delighted to have the ability to hand the baton to a brand new chief with the organisation in good well being. The UK is such an essential marketplace for WPP, with so many improbable folks, shoppers and companions, and I’m trying ahead to with the ability to commit all of my time and a focus to the nation management position.”
The transfer is introduced as a option to simplify WPP’s operations within the UK, which is the group’s second largest territory after the US, with advert revenues of $2bn and a employees of 12,000.
Mark Learn, CEO of WPP, mentioned: “As we convey our companies collectively in our new campuses and ship more and more built-in companies for our shoppers, the dimensions and significance of the UK market requires a task with full-time focus. We additionally discovered throughout lockdown – when it was important we acted as one firm – how essential it’s to have devoted nation management in our main markets around the globe. Karen is without doubt one of the most admired figures in our trade and the form of collaborative, people-focused chief who is ideal for this position.”
WPP has just lately opened Rose Court docket, one other constructing close to its Sea Containers HQ in Southwark, and plans to maneuver into the refurbished former Monetary Occasions constructing, additionally close by.
