Martin Sorrell
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Sir Martin Sorrell (born February 14, 1945) is the chief executive officer of WPP Group and has served in that role since he started the company in 1986. WPP stands for Wire Plastic Products, being a company he bought specifically to have a holding company with which to buy advertising agencies. Since then, WPP has become one of the world's leading communications services and advertising companies valued by the UK stockmarket at £7.5 billion.
Sorrell himself is widely respected throughout the advertising industry, with his words being scrutinised and quoted by many within the marketing sector. Many industry observes credit him with the fact that the UK still has an independent, vibrant communications industry. His famed remark that the advertising recession in the early part of this decade was "bath shaped" was one of the most repeated quotes in the 2003 - 2004 period.
With billings of $15 billion and revenues of $3.5 billion, WPP's 70 operating companies provide national, multi-national and global clients with advertising, media investment management, information and consultancy, public relations and public affairs, branding and identity, healthcare and specialist communications services. Sorrell's firm employs 65,000 people in 950 offices in 92 countries. He owns a substantial stake in the company through a series of pay awards and his own purchases of shares. Until recently he had never before sold shares in the company; his shares are worth around £95 million.
WPP is regarded as the driving force for the period of consolidation which has been going on within the communications industry for the last ten - fifteen years. His WPP group has amassed the largest media buying group in the world, Group M. Together with the giant creative agency networks, JWT and Ogilvy and Mather, WPP is one of the two major players in the global advertising market.
Before founding WPP, Martin Sorrell led the international expansion of famed UK advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi as their group finance director from 1977 until 1984. He is an economics graduate of Cambridge University and has an MBA from Harvard University.
In 1997, he was appointed an Ambassador for British Business by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and subsequently appointed to the Office's Panel 2000 aimed at rebranding Britain abroad. In 1999 he was appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to serve on the Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership and this year was appointed a member of the Committee for the Special Olympics, serving on the Board. He was Knighted in the Millennium New Year Honours list.
Sorrell was in 2005 forced to sell £9m of shares in WPP to pay a tax bill, due to an Inland Revenue clampdown on executive tax avoidance arrangements. He also agreed to change a contract with the company which had been much criticized by institutional shareholders in WPP as being unfairly written in Sorrell's favor. Under the previous agreement if Sorrell had been terminated, it would have led to a very large payout; the new agreement provides him instead with one year's pay.
Shareholders have criticized many aspects of corporate governance at WPP. This came to the fore again in 2006 with the advent of two court cases revolving around alleged corruption in an Italian subsidiary and contract disputes with the US launch of the OK! magazine.
[[Category:British business people|Sorrell]
James Robert Sorrell
