Cindy Rose on Why She’s ‘Not Claiming Victory Yet’ and How AI Agents Could Boost Margins

When Cindy Rose became CEO of WPP a little over a year ago, the company was in its worst decline since the pandemic, with revenue down 5.4% and margins eroding fast. Today, WPP reported that Q3 revenue, less pass-through costs, fell 2.1% to $3.2 billion (£2.41 billion), narrowing from Q2’s 2.8% decline. Reported revenue was up 0.5% year-over-year to $4.4 billion. Meanwhile, WPP Media returned to 0.3% growth for the first time in six quarters. Rose said it’s a sign her strategy to return WPP to organic growth by 2027 is taking shape. Nearly a year into that plan, the business is starting to show signs of health, following two quarters of narrowing declines. “Nobody's claiming victory yet, but I am really encouraged by the progress and the momentum that we're seeing,” Rose told ADWEEK. To get here, Rose reorganized the business into four divisions—media, creative, production, and enterprise solutions—and realigned incentives around WPP’s performance rather than specific agencies. These changes allow it to show up as one team for clients, leading to success in pitches such as Jaguar Land Rover and most recently, Coca-Cola. Rose has also embarked on a $676 million (£500 million) cost-cutting plan, which has so far included selling 15 businesses, such as Kantar-owned Xtel, eliminating overlapping roles, and shopping its 40% stake in Kantar. WPP expects disposals to bring in $266 million (£200 million) this year, which it will reinvest back into the business, Rose said. “It is a cost story and a growth story in equal measure,” she said. WPP’s executive ranks have also shifted amid the seas of change. WPP Creative CEO Jon Cook and CFO Joanne Wilson were the latest to announce their exits this fall. Meanwhile, Rose has filled key roles, recruiting from brands like Estée Lauder and Lego, and most recently poaching Tyler Turnbull from rival Omnicom. She said the search for a new chief financial officer is underway. But there’s still work to do. Creative revenues declined by 5.1%, and there will be more centralizing of the back office. The biggest changes, however, may be yet to come. In Rose’s vision of WPP’s future, “hybrid teams of humans and agents [are] working together.” She said that’s not just a strategic bet, but “a margin expansion opportunity.” “The cost of agents is less than the cost of humans,” she said. She spoke with ADWEEK about WPP’s third-quarter results, her strategy's progress, and the company’s agentic future. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. ADWEEK: When you took the job a year ago, you said WPP’s performance was unacceptable. One year in, what's improved, and what still needs work? CINDY ROSE: We had extraordinary talent and capabilities around the world, but they were buried in complexity. We just couldn't get out of our own way. We still have a lot to do. We're moving in the right direction. The most encouraging thing to me is the response we're getting from clients. When you're transforming at this scale, it takes a bit of time to flow through to the numbers. Nobody's more impatient than I am to see the results of our work. AW: What changes are clients responding to? CR: We're showing up as one organization, and we're able to put the right talent in front of the right client at the right time, without all of those historical constraints. The vast majority of our pitches right now, and for the last year, are integrated. The old WPP was not set up for that. AW: How have the agencies responded to that shift culturally? CR: We're seeing fantastic collaboration that the company has never seen before. If you look at Kenvue, where I had Ogilvy and VML pitching together, or Wendy's, where VML was the creative agency of record and brought in WPP Media and now it's an integrated client, this just wouldn't have happened in the past. That's because we've removed some of the structural blockers that were preventing us from winning as a team. AW: Agencies are battling fee compression and shrinking scopes as clients expect them to do more with less using AI. How are you evolving WPP’s commercial model to address that market reality? CR: There's going to be some deflationary pressure on pricing in the short term. Longer term, AI represents a growth opportunity for the industry, and certainly for WPP. Any organization built on a time-and-materials model needs to be thinking hard about evolving. I don't think this model is going to change overnight, because I don't think our clients are ready for that. But we are pushing really hard for new commercial models linked to outcomes, so that we're not being held to a staffing plan anymore. That's where I think this inevitably has to go. Outcome-based models also give me the flexibility to deploy agents, and that's a margin expansion opportunity. AW: Why is that? CR: Because the cost of agents is less than the cost of humans. When you can start to use agents for low-level, repetitive tasks, like versioning, translation, or research, you need fewer humans to do that stuff. I need more humans doing craft and storytelling. That's where we're doubling down on humans as a growth multiplier. AW: What concrete business results are you seeing from the investments you’ve made in WPP Open? CR: It features in 100% of our pitches. One hundred percent of our client-facing executives work within the platform. Most of them [spend] several hours a day using the tools. It's differentiated in the market because it's open by design. Clients do not want to get structurally locked into something that's impossible or expensive to get out of, because a lot of clients are investing heavily in building their own capabilities. So we've designed a platform that can integrate with what they already have. AW: What’s the future of the creative business? CR: While [clients] value creativity more than ever, they're looking to push more and more of their budget into working media. CMOs are being required to transform and modernize marketing operations. They're not getting tons of incremental budget to do it. So they're looking to optimize their marketing investments. But we are able to cross-sell much more effectively because the collaboration is there. We can see the white space within our client accounts, and we're able to go after it in a much more unified way. I'm very hopeful that creative is going to deliver value to WPP far beyond the confines of a creative brief. When WPP teams walk in the room, we have to light it up with the best ideas in the industry. AW: Earlier this month, Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun said that client conflict is more manageable in a consolidating market, where more clients are choosing agencies without a pitch. Do you agree? CR: This isn’t about immediate gratification. It's about building trusted, long-term business partnerships with clients, based on capability and commitment. I think it's misguided for anyone to think it's about a CEO handshake. Nobody loves pitching—the burden and expense associated with the pitching process is off the charts. But I don’t think we do ourselves any favors as an industry of professionals by encouraging clients to bypass proper due diligence. Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Rose's strategy is to return to growth in 2027, not 2028.

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Cindy Rose on Why She’s ‘Not Claiming Victory Yet’ and How AI Agents Could Boost Margins

One year in, the CEO says her strategy is on track. Here’s what has changed and what still needs to be done

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Alison Weissbrot

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