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WPP chief executive Mark Read said on Monday that he will step down after seven years in the role.

In his memo to staff (published in full below), Read highlighted the challenges, including the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, that WPP has faced during his tenure, and noted achievements including the wins of Amazon, J&J and The Coca-Cola Company.

Looking to the future he added, “The current business and economic environment is also difficult, with uncertainty impacting our clients’ spending. However, I strongly believe that the future for WPP is a very positive one and that clients understand the long-term value of what we do.”

His biggest focus of the past two years, he added, was preparing WPP to “succeed in this AI age.”

He said, “The good news is that we have invested ahead of our competition and built a leadership position as a result. This is essential both for our competitiveness as a business and for creating sustainable careers for our people.”

Read started at WPP 36 years ago as a corporate development manager and, in the closing notes of his memo, he thanked everyone in the business, adding: “Despite all our investments in technology, we are ultimately a people business. It’s you who make things happen, support one another, come up with ideas, inspire our clients, figure out an ever more complicated media world and produce work of such great craft and impact. You are what makes WPP the fantastic company it is, and I am very proud to have worked alongside you.”

Read will leave his role at the end of 2025. The process to recruit a new CEO of WPP is in progress.

WPP’s PR firms include Burson and Ogilvy PR. 

The memo in full

It is almost seven years since I took on the role of CEO of WPP. It has been an immense privilege to lead this amazing company, made up of so many talented, creative and committed people all over the world.

We have achieved so much at WPP over that time. We have won some of the world’s biggest clients, including Amazon, J&J and The Coca-Cola Company. Today we serve four of the five most valuable companies in the world as their most significant marketing partner. We won Creative Company of the Decade at Cannes, and were again named Creative Company of the Year last summer. Our revenues with our largest clients have grown consistently and our client satisfaction scores are as high as they have ever been. As a creative, client-facing business, this is the bedrock of success.

We created VML as the world’s most powerful creative company, bringing together JWT, Wunderman, Y&R and VML as well as many other brands within those organizations. Ogilvy has prospered, becoming Network of the Year at Cannes. We brought back Burson in celebration of its extraordinary founder. Hogarth has grown strongly, embracing technology and integrating our production capabilities. A new CEO will soon start at AKQA and Grey has a new home with Ogilvy.

We strengthened our financial position by selling 60% of Kantar and created FGS Global with its management before selling our stake to KKR to allow us to invest more in our core business. And, most recently, we launched WPP Media as a more integrated and technology-led company. All of these moves have made WPP stronger, more connected and better prepared for the future.

Along the way, we have needed to make many difficult decisions that were necessary to serve our clients better, simplify the company, build our culture and put WPP on a more solid financial footing. We have also lived through some of the most challenging external events of modern times, from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine, and navigated an increasingly polarised and difficult world.

The current business and economic environment is also difficult, with uncertainty impacting our clients’ spending. However, I strongly believe that the future for WPP is a very positive one and that clients understand the long-term value of what we do.

This brings us inevitably to AI. My personal belief is that over time AI will have a bigger impact on society, on business and on WPP than even the internet. My biggest area of focus over the past two years has been ensuring WPP will succeed in this AI age. The good news is that we have invested ahead of our competition and built a leadership position as a result. This is essential both for our competitiveness as a business and for creating sustainable careers for our people.

Every time I show a CEO or CMO the power of WPP Open, their reaction proves that we have something very special. I am very encouraged by the fact that 50,000 of you use the platform every month, a figure that’s growing all the time. That said, AI is going to require us to change more, collaborate more and embrace its power and, if we do, we can lead our industry into a new era of marketing.

There is never a perfect time to move on as CEO, especially when you have been with one company for as long as I have, but this feels like the right time for me. After seven years as CEO, and with the foundations in place for WPP’s continued success, I have decided to explore the next chapter in my life. I’ve agreed with the board that I will work through to the end of the year and I’m working with them to find my successor.

I started here some 36 years ago, straight out of university, and can tell you that WPP, and our industry as a whole, has been an incredible place to build a career. Very few companies touch so many parts of business, culture and society. Fewer still have at their heart such a spirit of creativity, curiosity and innovation. I have been very lucky to call WPP my professional home for so long, to have worked with such brilliant colleagues, and to have made so many lifelong friends. The world is an exciting place and there are many opportunities to do new things out there, but I will always look back with great fondness and gratitude to my time at WPP.

Now to the most important part of this note. I want to thank each of you for everything you do. People often say they couldn’t have done anything without their team, but in a company like WPP that is simply a fact. Despite all our investments in technology, we are ultimately a people business. It’s you who make things happen, support one another, come up with ideas, inspire our clients, figure out an ever more complicated media world and produce work of such great craft and impact. You are what makes WPP the fantastic company it is, and I am very proud to have worked alongside you.

I wish you all the best and I know that I will stay in close touch with many of you.

This story first appeared on Campaign UK.