As WPP’s Cindy Rose marks a year as CEO, turnaround is underway but far from certain

Two thirds of the way through the year, per COMvergence data shared with Digiday, WPP Media has won just over $3 billion in fresh accounts, by estimated media value, while accounts lost totaled $2.81 billion, with a retention rate of 43%. That’s a favorable contrast with last year’s 16% retention and lost accounts equalling $6.98 billion.

That recovery hasn’t dispelled years of revenue decline, the debt sitting on its balance sheet or the fact that the minutiae of previous CEO Mark Read’s recovery efforts are currently being dissected in a class action lawsuit in New York. But it does show a cautious optimism that wasn’t there last September. 

Rose’s busy year

British-American Rose, 61, has made herself more available to reporters since taking charge, appearing in press briefings to discuss the company’s quarterly earnings where Read chose to remain out of the spotlight. (On this occasion, however, a WPP spokesperson declined our interview request.)

According to one industry consultant who exchanged anonymity for candor, Rose’s accessible, hands-on leadership style and willingness to join pitch efforts has energized WPP’s client-facing teams. “She has brought that personality and the hunger and the hustle to go and win business and then win again,” said the consultant. “I’ve spoken to her a few times, and you don’t feel you’re talking to the CEO of WPP.”

As a former Microsoft COO, Rose’s pedigree isn’t in pitch theater but operations, and five months into the job she unveiled a sweeping plot to save WPP dubbed “Elevate28“. In practical terms, that strategy swept WPP’s disparate businesses into four pillars: media, creative, production and a consulting business named “Enterprise Solutions”, each orbiting its data unit, WPP Open. The company has leaned further into AI capabilities, maintaining its annual £300 million ($405 million) investment in the technology while launching WPP Open Pro, a self-service creative toolbox. WPP’s headcount has shrunk as Rose simplified the org chart, with the company shedding some 1,260 jobs in the first half of 2026 alone, bringing its total to around 104,000. Further layoffs are expected this year.

“The core of her task is to simplify this business so that it can go into the AI world, or the technology-based services world, with a really strong operating model,” said Rosie McKeith, partner at SI Global.

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As part of the overhaul, Rose and WPP Media CEO Brian Lesser doubled down on WPP’s principal media buying efforts, despite the fact that those practices are currently the subject of a different New York lawsuit. “It’s a part of our business, and it’s a growing part of our business, and I expect it to continue to grow over time,” Lesser told analysts in March.

Though principal media-buying certainly has its critics, the embrace of the technique, according to Forrester principal analyst and vp Jay Pattisall, puts WPP on the right side of client demand. “The industry is marching toward more coherent, structured and transparent principal media programs. All the holding companies include opt-ins, audits, like-for-like planning, labelling and extended benefits like price, exclusives and performance guarantees. Media arbitrage may have a reputation and a number of opponents, but it works and it’s growing,” he told Digiday.

At the same time, Rose has elevated execs from within WPP’s cavernous staff hierarchy into her C-suite with briefs tethered to Elevate28, including the promotion of Devika Bulchandani, formerly in charge of Ogilvy, as the group’s COO.

In April, the firm put Marie-Claire Barker in charge of culture and performance across the group and tapped up former Lego exec Mark Taylor as its chief people officer. That month it also hired Anne-Isabelle Choueiri, ex of Estée Lauder, as its chief transformation officer. VML boss Jon Cook was put in charge of its entire creative business. Also notable was the retention of Laurent Ezekiel, who had planned to leave WPP for a gig at arch-rival Publicis Groupe. Previously CEO of Open X, a bespoke unit created for key client Coca-Cola (more on them later), Ezekiel was bumped up to lead Ogilvy shortly after Rose took office. And last month, WPP hired Rema Vasan, previously head of North America at TikTok, as global president, social and creator for WPP Open X.

The roads not (yet) taken

So far, WPP’s new business record in 2026, which includes wins with Estée Lauder, Henkel and Waymo, has been tentatively positive. Its January Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) win, built around an outcome-based model, drew praise. According to Pattisall, embracing outcome-based models with clients would nudge WPP away from the pricing pressure that has eaten away at agency group margins in recent years.

“The most meaningful signal would be a shift in the commercial model from labor-based remuneration to performance-based in media, and a blend of labor and technology fees for creative and production,” he said. But since March JLR is the only client to have signed up to such an offer. “It’s going to take time for this evolution to take place… I suspect it will take a few years,” Rose told Digiday last month. Meanwhile, client losses have continued, pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk chief among them.

If the outcome-based arrangement remains a special deal struck only for JLR, it could curdle the company’s momentum. WPP’s task isn’t just to win more accounts but to find ways to increase its operating profit margin (4.1% in its latest results, compared with Publicis’ 17.4%).

The company’s lack of progress on its margin, despite years of staff reductions and agency consolidations, is one area that brings rebuke from Sir Martin Sorrell, who led WPP from 1985 until 2017. Sorrell, a serial critic of WPP, told Digiday that Rose has made “no real progress” on its underlying business performance. “Apart from the slower rate of revenue decline, not much has changed,” he said. 

Sorrell argued that one way forward would be to sell off one or more of the company’s tarnished assets – its 40% stake in Kantar, ailing PR business Burson, or a creative network such as Ogilvy or VML. The idea clearly has at least some purchase inside WPP, given that Rose’s predecessor Read reportedly held meetings with Accenture about a potential deal as recently as last July. 

Shedding one or more of those businesses would improve WPP’s overall profitability — operating profit fell 3.4% to £398 million ($536 million) in H1 — while providing a means of reducing its $3.3 billion debt pile. Disposing of the remainder of its Kantar stake, (WPP sold a 60% stake to Bain Capital back in 2019) would be “a good, cash generative deal for [WPP],” said SI Global’s McKeith.

It’d also prove that Rose’s simplification drive had teeth. “They’ll be thinking: what do we need moving forwards, and therefore what should get rid of,” explained McKeith.

Selling a creative limb would certainly sting. But IPG’s divestment from R\GA, Huge and Deutsch in 2024 and 2025 provides a precedent. According to Matt Lacey, managing partner at M&A consultants Waypoint, the rationale would be to “double-down on where you’re winning and the businesses that are able to thrive as part of the group, and divest those that are either being held back or are just not core to the future proposition.”

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The ongoing Coca-Cola review, which has WPP pitted against Publicis, looms above Rose’s first year in charge.

The Paris firm prised away the soda giant’s North American media account last year. If WPP can successfully defend the breach, it’ll grant Rose a morale-boosting victory and confirmation that its green shoots can climb. The review is expected to wrap before Christmas. 

“There’s just such an emotional connection, and it carries so much weight,” noted the anonymous consultant. Coca-Cola is not the only major account in the mix, either. Swedish furniture-maker IKEA’s $1 billion global media account kicked off a review last month. 

Should WPP win both, Rose’s year could be the beginning of a fresh start. Should Publicis take Coke, it’ll seal the narrative of decline and highlight the big calls that Rose has put off.