Martin Sorrell

Sir Martin Stuart Sorrell (born 14 February 1945) is a British businessman and the founder of WPP plc, the world's largest advertising and PR group, both by revenue and the number of staff.

Martin Stuart Sorrell was born in London on 14 February 1945 to a Jewish family: his father was an electronics retailer, whose ancestors came from Ukraine, Poland and Romania.

He was educated at the independent Haberdashers' Boys' School, then studied economics at Christ's College, Cambridge, and gained an MBA from Harvard University in 1968.

Sorrell joined Glendinning Associates, then James Gulliver and then worked for the sports agent Mark McCormack.

He joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 1975, and was group finance director from 1977 until 1984.

Often referred to as "the third brother", he designed and carried out many of Saatchi's agency acquisitions.

Sorrell undertook this by refining the practice of the ‘earn-out’.

In 1985, Sorrell privately invested in Wire and Plastic Products plc, a British wire shopping basket manufacturer, and joined it full-time as chief executive in 1986.

He began to acquire "below-the-line" advertising-related companies, purchasing 18 in three years, including in 1987 when he stunned the agency world with a $566 million hostile takeover of J. Walter Thompson.

Sorrell followed this in 1989 with another dramatic hostile $825 million buy of Ogilvy and Mather.

Group chairman David Ogilvy publicly referred to Sorrell as an "odious little shit".

Since 2000, WPP also acquired two more integrated, global agency networks, Young & Rubicam and Grey.

In 2005 Sorrell sold £9m of shares in WPP at the end of a restricted stock holding period.

He also agreed to change a contract with the company which had been much criticised by institutional shareholders in WPP as being unfairly written in Sorrell's favour.

Under the previous agreement if Sorrell had been terminated, it would have led to a very large payout; the new agreement provided him instead with no termination payment.

Shareholders have criticised aspects of corporate governance at WPP.

In 2005 his pay was £2.42 million including cash and bonuses.

This came to the fore again in 2006 with the advent of two court cases revolving around alleged corruption in an Italian subsidiary and contract disputes with the US launch of the OK!

magazine.

In June 2008 WPP drew criticism for the involvement of an agency, 'Imago', in which WPP's Y&R subsidiary held a minority interest, with the ZANU-PF presidential campaign in Zimbabwe.

A report by the Financial Times found out that Imago was employed by Robert Mugabe's campaign for reelection to the presidency of Zimbabwe.

WPP subsequently divested Y&R's minority interests in Zimbabwe.

Further he exercised £52 million in share options, was entitled to a further £5.8million in stock, and deferred further options on another 2.65 million shares valued at £15 million until 2008.

In 2011 Sorrell's pay package increased by 70% to £4.5 million after WPP's pre-tax profits rose 28%.

In October 2011 Sorrell went on the BBC to defend large increases in his and other CEO pay packages at a time when real average wages in the Western world were declining.

In 2012, Sorrell almost sold WPP to Berkshire Hathaway.

According to Sorrell, over lunch at the Hyatt Hotel in Washington, Warren Buffett offered 925p per share, or a 20% premium over the then share price.

In 2014, Sorrell received total compensation from WPP of GBP £40 million, his largest annual total since £53 million in 2004.

In August 2017, Sorrel said that "digital disruption" was forcing companies to change their business models and reach customers in different ways when shares in WPP fell by more than 10% at the start of trading after the advertising giant reported slowing sales and warned about future growth.

In September 2017, Sorrell criticised the marketing industry, arguing it is "too competitive" and that agencies value winning contracts, whether they are profitable or not, over content since making the headlines in a trade magazine is more important.

In 2017, Sorrell became the longest-serving CEO of any company featured in the U.K.'s benchmark FTSE 100 Index – having stewarded WPP since 1985.

In 2017, following criticism about his pay from investors, Sorrell agreed to a pay cut that would have reduced his salary from £46 million in 2016 to £13 million by 2021.

Upon being ousted in April 2018, Sorrell was the longest-serving chief executive of a FTSE 100 company.

He is consistently one of the UK's highest-paid corporate executives.

Sorrell left WPP in 2018.

In April 2018, Sorrell left WPP after 33 years, following allegations of personal misconduct and misuse of company assets.

Sorrell has denied the allegations.

The Financial Times in an investigation around the circumstances of his departure from WPP has commented that what “emerged is a picture of routine verbal abuse of underlings and a blending of Sir Martin’s corporate and private life that jarred with some colleagues — particularly over his company expenditure, some of which was also extended to his wife” This included allegations that Sorrell visited a brothel paid for with company funds.

According to The Sunday Times Rich List in 2019, Sorrell is worth £368 million.

Sorrell has served on boards and advisory bodies of a number of high-profile public, academic and business organisations, including several leading business schools, both in the UK and internationally.