WPP announces state leaders under new campus model, and appoints head of corporate strategy
WPP has appointed leaders of its Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane outposts as part of implementing CEO Jens Monsees’ new campus model, Mumbrella can reveal.
Mediacom’s Brisbane MD, Katherine Williams, becomes Queensland’s group general executive and chair of Mediacom Brisbane. Wavemaker’s Adelaide MD, Mat Hofmeyer, is now South Australia group general executive and will continue in his Wavemaker leadership role. And Steve Harris, chair and CEO of The Brand Agency, steps up to the role of Western Australia group general executive while retaining his The Brand Agency position.
“Our campus strategy aims to bring our brands closer together to forge greater collaboration and help us better solves our clients’ challenges. WPP AUNZ’s brands are the strongest on the market,” Monsees said.
So does that mean MDs of creative agencies report to MDs of media agencies in those markets – and vice versa? What happens with client conflict situations that the structure will inevitably present in those markets?
The answers it seems are (a) yes; and apparently (b) who cares.
Given that Jens himself has only been in this role for 6 months, one can assume that this hire must have been locked in either around the time of his arrival, or shortly after Jens started.
So did he give himself time to assess WPP’s issues, let alone the talent available within WPP, and across the local markets, within those few weeks?
I applaud WPP’s effort in addressing its reinvention btw, I am just baffled by Batman and Robin from BMW as a strategy.
Where’s the confusion? Jens has worked with Dominik before and clearly trusts him. Bearing in mind he was bought in as a solution to the infighting that is a rampant at WPP and the board wanted a leader who could be neutral it makes perfect sense for him to recruit someone who is also from the outside and therefore doesn’t have favourites already.
How did it come to this?