The board’s subsequent transfer is much less about succession than course. WPP has spent the final decade pivoting — to information, to commerce, to consulting — usually abruptly. Now comes the onerous half: deciding what sort of holding firm it needs to be in a panorama formed by AI, platforms and relentless effectivity. WPP plans to conduct a seek for a substitute, which is partially why Learn will keep on the remainder of 2025.

As Forrester’s vp principal analyst Jay Pattisall, put it, “Mark Learn’s successor should be capable of go searching corners for media and creativity, whereas sustaining the operational realities. It’s a uncommon government to suit all these directly.”

Brian Lesser

The title most continuously floated is Brian Lesser, CEO of WPP Media and a returning exec with deep institutional roots. Lesser is fluent within the sort of operational restructuring shoppers say they need — and the type that not often wins headlines. Within the months since he returned in November, he has reorganized the media division round merchandise, not portfolios, minimize employees and emphasised integrations between information and shoppers. Much less model gloss, extra methods considering.

His candidacy feels inevitable. He extends Learn’s structural sensibility with arguably sharper execution — and fewer sentimental attachments. However there are limits to pragmatism. Holding corporations nonetheless need to undertaking imaginative and prescient, not simply worth. Shoppers need management and effectivity however they don’t wish to be bored.  

Matt Barash, chief business officer at Nova, informed Digiday that there’s a widespread false impression of Lesser, who was previously the CEO of GroupM’s company buying and selling desk, Xaxis, within the mid-2010s, as “an advert tech man.”

As a substitute, Barash, a long-time affiliate of Lesser, characterised him as somebody who acknowledges the necessity for differentiation to win new shopper enterprise and give attention to defensibility to retain these shoppers. 

“Companies are caught enjoying protection to maintain shopper enterprise by any means essential, however he’s constructing a stickier mannequin with information on the core,” he mentioned, including that Lesser has an “uncanny skill to see round corners and determine the subsequent massive factor … He’s a product marketer who is aware of learn how to inform an important story and get the market to purchase in.”

Emily Del Greco

Which is the place Emily Del Greco enters the dialog. She joined WPP earlier this 12 months from McKinsey and now leads world shopper options for WPP Media. She’s the uncommon hybrid: strategic however not indifferent, consultative with out the PowerPoint fog. Her background spans editorial gross sales at Vogue, advert tech roles at Adelphic and Google, and a protracted stint operating her personal consultancy earlier than leaping into the company world at MightyHive. She’s suggested CMOs. She’s lived the fragmentation most holding corporations are nonetheless making an attempt to make sense of. 

“Del Greco may drive a deeply strategic consultative course that WPP as a complete may gain advantage from, and he or she has a really robust status each internally and externally,” mentioned Ruben Schreurs, CEO of media administration agency Ebiquity. 

Nonetheless, there’s cause to mood the passion. Del Greco is essentially a gross sales chief — aggressive and efficient, by most accounts, throughout her agency-side years. If her title is really in competition, it could mirror a board desperate to refocus on income development and new enterprise wins. However she’s solely been at WPP a matter of months — a brief runway for somebody being thought of to run all the firm. 

Stephan Pretorius

Given the holdco’s emphasis on generative AI — a number of bulletins in the previous couple of weeks have hammered that message house — one state of affairs may contain WPP’s chief AI architect getting the prospect to run the corporate: Stephan Pretorius. And he’s been a WPP insider for almost a decade as not solely chair of AKQA but additionally the U.Ok. CEO of Wunderman. It’s protected to say he’s considerably acquainted with the WPP method of operating issues — whereas spearheading its new course. 

“The plain candidate for me can be somebody like Stephan given the course of the trade, not simply WPP, is heading so clearly in the direction of AI, information know-how,” mentioned Ryan Kangisser, MediaSense’s chief technique officer. “I believe they’re going to wish that kind of profile in the event that they’re going to rework the enterprise and never simply rework structurally.”

To Kangisser’s considering, this isn’t the time to go together with a protected “conventional” sort of CEO. “That skilled CEO, I don’t understand how resonant that’s when there’s a lot instability available in the market,” he mentioned, whereas Pretorius “has bought presence and great experience.” 

David Droga

Talking of presence, then there’s David Droga. 

Simply weeks in the past, his title would’ve learn like fan fiction. Now, together with his introduced transition out of the CEO function at Accenture Tune, the hypothesis feels extra grounded. Droga shifting right into a vice chair function clears his schedule. Learn’s exit cracks open a risk. 

“My cash is on David Droga, and this may occasionally already be in movement contemplating his departure at Accenture Tune two weeks in the past adopted by the announcement of Learn’s exit,” mentioned Ruben Schreurs, CEO of media administration agency Ebiquity. “He would deliver the sort of charismatic management WPP would profit from immensely together with his transformative, forward-looking, built-in mindset and observe document.”

Droga can be a departure — not simply from Learn however from all the logic of the trendy holding firm. His energy has at all times been artistic conviction, not cautious optimization. And but, his 12 months’s at Accenture proved he’s greater than an concepts man. At Accenture, he managed the unbelievable: embedding a brand-first ethos inside a consulting large and serving to to develop income from $12 billion to almost $20 billion. His potential appointment can be much less about continuity and extra about (perceived) course correction. 

If WPP had been to call him CEO, it will be greater than a management choice, It will be a provocation. A sign that the corporate nonetheless believes within the emotional energy of brand name, even after years spent chasing margin, scale and operational readability. It will additionally increase the extra harmful query: can an organization optimized for spreadsheets nonetheless include a frontrunner optimized for feeling? Droga wouldn’t run WPP. He would attempt to reawaken it. That’s both thrilling or terrifying. Probably each.  

Philip Jansen

WPP’s chairman for the final 12 months sees the chance for brand spanking new considering on the high as he in the end signed off on changing Learn. He’s bought CEO chops from his stint at British Telecom — in addition to an iron will to chop no matter must be minimize primarily based on that BT tenure.

May he engineer a contemporary wave of cutbacks at WPP if he takes over as chairman and CEO? That’s the paradox on the head of WPP now. Its worth lies in its sprawl — the vastness of its choices, its world attain, its theoretical skill to serve each shopper want from information to show, and even its harnessing of AI. And but that very same sprawl is what makes it so tough to steer.

Learn tried to tame the beast with order and methods. His successor can be requested to do extra to make it really feel coherent, trendy, and possibly even fascinating once more.

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