WPP Plc Chief Government Officer Mark Learn is about to retire on the finish of the yr, kicking off a seek for a successor at one of many world’s largest promoting company teams because it grapples with slowing gross sales.
Learn, 58, has helmed the British firm for about seven years and has been with the corporate for greater than 30 years, the corporate stated in an announcement on Monday.
WPP, as soon as the biggest advert company globally, has been engaged on methods to reignite development and streamline its operations to deal with softening gross sales and a dismal outlook. The worldwide financial downturn has hit consumer spending, particularly in Asia, and the rise of synthetic intelligence capabilities to automate advert creation and distribution is elevating doubts throughout the advert trade.
In February, WPP shares dropped after the group forecast gross sales would stay flat or shrink this yr, lacking analysts’ estimates, whereas rival group Publicis Groupe SA stated it expects natural development of between 4% and 5% this yr.
The corporate had beforehand restructured its secure of manufacturers to chop prices and introduced a plan to spend tons of of tens of millions of kilos on new applied sciences, together with constructing out AI capabilities.
Learn’s retirement highlights “the challenge his successor faces to overcome years of financial and share-price underperformance against rivals, and opens the prospect of strategic and structural shifts,” stated Matthew Bloxham, senior trade analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “The new leader will need to double down on simplification, cost-cutting and technology investment.”
Former BT Group Plc head Philip Jansen was appointed chairman of the advert group in January.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
