Who is Cindy Rose, WPP’s insider-outsider pick for its next CEO?

WPP has been flirting with the idea of becoming an “AI-driven platform business” for some time – mostly in earnings calls and on strategy decks. Now, with a new CEO incoming, the holdco might finally be ready to turn the tagline into a throughline. 

That job now falls to Cindy Rose, a longtime Microsoft executive and current chief of operating officer of its global enterprise business. She’ll take over from Mark Read on September 1st (though Read will stick around until the year’s end). 

When she does, she won’t be walking in blind. Rose has been a non-executive director on WPP’s board since 2019, so she knows the scale of the ambition, and the sprawl she’s inheriting. 

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