Cindy Rose.
Cindy Rose, noting she has a lot of hard work ahead, has spoken to WPP’s 104,000 staff a few days before she officially becomes the first woman CEO of the global advertising group.
On Monday, she takes over from Mark Read a company with negative revenue growth with a turnaround task ahead.
“You could say I’ve been a mega-fan of WPP for more than 15 years now,” she said in a video message.
“I feel so privileged and inspired to work together with all of you to write WPP’s next chapter and our next chapter will be fantastic.”
Rose has spent the last nine years in senior leadership positions at Microsoft where she was most recently chief operating officer, global enterprise. She has been a non-executive director on the WPP board since 2019.
Rose takes over a company in the middle of restructuring, with negative growth, a weak share price and pushback from staff on a back to the office mandate.
“I won’t sugar coat this, we have a lot of hard work ahead and, of course, it won’t be easy,” Rose said.
“But when I think about the assets that we have as a company — the brilliant people we have, the multi-award-winning creative work that we produce, our beloved agency brands, our amazing clients, our global reach, our world-leading technology capabilities — wow, I cannot help but feel excited about our future.”
Watch Cindy Rose HERE.
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