WPP WPP 0.74% PLC named Mark Read as chief executive Monday, tapping a company veteran in a push for continuity at the world’s largest ad firm after the departure of founder Martin Sorrell. In an interview, Mr. Read said he doesn’t plan to merge or sell any of WPP’s marquee creative agencies, such as Young & Rubicam and J. Walter Thompson, focusing instead on how to make them work more closely with the company’s stable of digital-advertising and data-science firms. That strategy spells relief for company insiders who once worried Mr. Sorrell’s resignation in April would lead to the dismantling of WPP’s sprawling empire. Mr. Read, however, now faces the challenge of yoking together disparate businesses as WPP scrambles to cope with disruption that Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and other tech companies are causing across the ad industry. “We need to move quickly and decisively, but this isn’t a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” Mr. Read said. Mr. Sorrell, 73 years old, built WPP into a globe-spanning colossus over three decades of acquisitions, but the scale that once allowed the company to thrive has lately made it a sluggish competitor. WPP is under pressure from investors and sizable clients—such as Ford Motor Co. , and Unilever PLC—to make the process of buying, creating and measuring the effectiveness of ads more simple and transparent. That is difficult for a holding company like WPP that has based its business model on pitting agencies against each other to win clients. “There’s no doubt our industry is going through a period of structural change, but it’s not a period of structural decline,” Mr. Read said. Mr. Read, 51, also is under pressure to move past WPP’s public duel with its founder. After resigning, Mr. Sorrell launched a rival ad holding company that recently outbid WPP to acquire MediaMonks, a Dutch digital production house. He has also continued to publicly needle WPP over its strategy and personnel moves. On Monday, Mr. Sorrell said he had congratulated Mr. Read while reiterating that he would have preferred to see WPP promote Andrew Scott along with Mr. Read to serve as co-chief executives. Instead, WPP named the 49-year-old Mr. Scott as chief operating officer on a permanent basis, a position he had temporarily held with Mr. Read during WPP’s chief-executive search. “Andrew is a very strong, capable executive,” Mr. Sorrell wrote to The Wall Street Journal in a text message. WPP signaled that it aims to keep CEO pay in check after facing investor criticism for handing Mr. Sorrell some of the industry’s largest payouts—£70.4 million in 2015 and £48.1 million in 2016—in part because of generous, long-term incentive stock awards, which made up most of his compensation. Mr. Read will receive a fixed salary of £975,000 ($1.3 million), slightly less than Mr. Sorrell’s salary of $1.48 million last year. Mr. Read’s maximum bonus and long-term incentive share awards have been capped at six times his base salary. His long-term incentive plan depends on WPP’s performance and share price after five years. Mr. Read’s co-workers describe him as a study in contrasts with Mr. Sorrell, a well-known micromanager who was long considered an oracle for his willingness to make pronouncements on the direction of the world economy. Newsletter Sign-up Notes on the News Today’s headlines, news in context, and good reads you may have missed, with Tyler Blint-Welsh. PREVIEW Mr. Read, co-workers say, is a soft-spoken introvert who gives his staff autonomy, often telling them to “just get on with it.” “People underestimate Mark because he’s not loud and brash,” said Shane Atchison, chief marketing officer of data-analytics company Domo Inc. and a former WPP executive. “He simplifies things rather than making them more complex.” Mr. Read shot to prominence in April when he was named co-chief operating officer of WPP, taking over the firm’s day-to-day operations after Mr. Sorrell resigned. He has since been reviewing WPP’s businesses, asking executives what works and what doesn’t. Colleagues say Mr. Read is exacting. A wine connoisseur, he is known for bringing his own bottle to social events in case the wine being served isn’t up to scratch, they say. In the interview, Mr. Read said he already has begun simplifying WPP by selling stakes in ad-tech firm AppNexus and marketing software developer Globant. He said WPP’s portfolio of more than 400 companies now “need to come closer together, not further apart. It’s paring down not breaking up.” “I’m keener to build stronger creative agencies with digital capabilities than I am to think about merging creative agencies in a cost consolidation play,” Mr. Read said. WPP executives say they are eager to see a shift in power away from the head office in London. Some felt decisions were delayed by a need to go through Mr. Sorrell for what they considered relatively trivial requests. Mr. Read was born in London. His father was an entrepreneur and his mother an orthodontist. In 1989, he joined WPP straight out of college after writing to Mr. Sorrell to ask for a job. He later worked at consulting firm Booz Allen & Hamilton before founding WebRewards, a startup specializing in online loyalty programs that was sold to Bertelsmann in 2001. After working on WPP’s digital development for more than a decade, he was named CEO of Wunderman in 2015, one of WPP’s largest agencies. There he consolidated Wunderman offices that were scattered across the globe. He also broadened Wunderman’s business, which was focused on direct marketing, to include consulting, business transformation and e-commerce, changing the agency’s pay structure to incentivize different parts of Wunderman to work together. Mr. Read “quickly unified us with a vision, a purpose and a culture,” said Mel Edwards who runs the agency’s Europe operations. Stephan Pretorius, chief technology officer at Wunderman, said Mr. Read fosters loyalty by empowering his staff. Shortly after WPP bought Mr. Pretorius’s company, Mr. Pretorius said, Mr. Read asked him to present to the board of a large media company on the future of digital publishing. Mr. Pretorius protested that he had never presented at that level, but Mr. Read told him to go ahead. “He pushes people to achieve more than they think they can achieve,” Mr. Pretorius said. Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com<doc-sep>WPP named insider Mark Read as its new chief executive on Monday tasked with replacing its founder Martin Sorrell and steering the world's biggest advertising company through a period of wide scale industry change. The 51-year-old former board member and digital boss replaces Sorrell who quit in April over a complaint of personal misconduct, which he denied, and following a year-long sharp downturn in trading due to fierce competition. Read had stepped up in April to run the company as a joint chief operating officer alongside Andrew Scott. WPP said on Monday that Scott would continue in that role while Roberto Quarta has resumed his role as non-executive chairman. "WPP is a great company with exceptional people and strong relationships with clients who place a high value on our work," Read said in a statement. Senior colleagues, former executives and analysts have told Reuters they believe Read's proven track record of running the WPP digital agency Wunderman combined with his knowledge of the sprawling business make him the right man for the job. Read was seen as the leading internal candidate to become CEO after he spent almost nine years on the board from 2006 to 2015. He has also worked on strategy, client retention and digital operations since he wrote to Sorrell asking for a job in 1989. Read takes over the 16 billion pound ($20.7 billion) company at a difficult time however as cautious clients question everything they spend and Facebook, Google and consultants such as Deloitte encroach on its turf.<doc-sep>WPP's new boss Mark Read has insisted he has no plans to break up the advertising conglomerate or cut staff as he formally steps into the job left vacant by Sir Martin Sorrell's shock exit. The 51-year-old signed his contract on Monday morning, five months after being made interim chief executive following the acrimonious departure of Sir Martin Sorrell in April. Mr Sorrell sent him a congratulations email on Sunday night, before the news was made public. "We're not contemplating a break-up of the group - it's more [about] simplifying our internal structure," Mr Read told The Daily Telegraph in response to concerns the firm is too complicated. "We will be looking at how we bring the top team at WPP working closely together." His path to the top of the ad empire, which has 400 subsidiaries across 112 countries, was mapped out years ago when Roberto Quarta, WPP's chairman - who is nicknamed “the bulldog” in the City - drew up succession plans in case Mr Sorrell suddenly left. That emergency ripcord was pulled in April when Mr Sorrell shocked the City by stepping down, leaving Mr Read in charge of the company on an interim basis with Andrew Scott as co-chief operating officer. "The key is that they work seamlessly together," Mr Sorrell told The Telegraph on Monday. "It would have been better if they were co-CEOs."<doc-sep>
WPP Group has appointed Mark Read as its chief executive officer and successor to founder Sir Martin Sorrell, who resigned amid controversy in April. Mr Read, a 29-year WPP veteran and one-time protege of its founder, has also been appointed executive director of the group board with immediate effect. Mr Read, a former CEO of WPP Digital who was on the WPP board for nine years between 2005 and 2015, will be tasked with turning around the world's largest advertising group in the wake of Sir Martin's departure and at a time of industry-wide change. Mr Read stepped up to become WPP joint chief operating officer in April, as Sir Martin quit after 33 years in charge following a complaint of personal misconduct, which he denied. Mr Read's colleague Andrew Scott will continue in that role. Image: Sir Martin quit following a complaint of personal misconduct, which he denied WPP said Mr Read will receive an annual salary of £975,000 ($1.25m) and an annual bonus of up to 250% of his salary, plus a long-term incentive scheme. Mr Read's pay comes in below his predecessor's 2017 base salary of £1.15m plus long-term incentive schemes, which over the years paid out tens of millions of pounds, and which had been dogged by investor rebellions over its size. WPP chairman Roberto Quarta said: "The board carried out a rigorous selection process, assessing internal and external candidates. "That process, alongside Mark's wise and effective stewardship of the business in the last few months, left us with no doubt that he is the right leader for this company, and we are delighted to announce the board's unanimous decision to appoint him as chief executive officer of WPP." Mark Read said: "Our industry is going through a period of structural change, not structural decline, and if we embrace that change we can look ahead to an exciting and successful future. "Our mission now is to release the full potential that exists within the company for the benefit of our clients, to accelerate our transformation and simplify our offering, and to position WPP for stronger growth."