Ogilvy Chief Always Planned to Step Down; Oxford Offer Accelerated the Move

A search for Miles Young's successor is underway

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Ogilvy & Mather chief Miles Young is leaving for a top job at Oxford University. But before that offer even came along, Young planned to step back into a chairman's role at the WPP network next year, sources say.

"That was always the plan," an Ogilvy source said. "In a job like this there comes a point where you need to slow down. The Oxford offer accelerated the announcement."

Ogilvy announced yesterday that the 61-year-old global chairman and CEO would retire next summer to become warden, or chief academic official, of Oxford's New College, Young's alma mater.

A new position within Ogilvy or WPP would have involved a relocation to London for the globe-trotting, indefatigable Brit, who is running out of L-1 visas allowing him to work at Ogilvy's worldwide headquarters in New York.

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