Digital boss may be Sorrell’s successor

WPP’s chief operating officer, Mark Read, will get the chance to stake his claim to the top job at the world’s biggest advertising firm when he presents its first set of results without founder Martin Sorrell on Monday.

Sorrell, who built a two-man business into one of Britain’s biggest companies with operations in 112 countries, never missed a quarterly results presentation and routinely appeared on television and radio shows to discuss everything from advertising trends to global economic events and politics.

He stood down two weeks ago after the board opened an investigation into allegations of personal misconduct, sparking a hunt for a replacement after 33 years at a time the company is facing challenges on every front.

Sorrell denied the allegations and the company has said they would not be made public.

Digital boss Read is the leading internal candidate to become CEO after he spent nine years on the WPP board from 2006 to 2015. He has worked on strategy, acquisitions and digital operations since he secured a job at WPP in 1989.

On Monday, he will join cochief operating officer Andrew Scott, finance director Paul Richardson and executive chairman Roberto Quarta in presenting the first-quarter results, while Read will also speak to the media.

“I’ve spent as much time as possible speaking to our people and clients,” Read told staff last week. “There’s universal admiration for Martin’s achievements, and sadness about his departure. At the same time, there’s a huge amount of support and goodwill for the company, and no shortage of confidence about the future.”

Whoever takes over the top job will face a difficult task, however. In March the group published its weakest results since the financial crash due to lower spending from consumer goods groups and competition from Google and Facebook. It forecast no growth in net sales in 2018, and analysts are expecting the first quarter to show a decline of 1% or worse.

“Despite the change of CEO, other things are unlikely to change at WPP near term,” Morgan Stanley said in a note. “We expect WPP to stay with its guidance, which is for organic flat net sales growth in 2018 and a flat underlying margin in constant currency.”