Brian Lesser returns to GroupM with an expected focus on advancing tech

The latest C-suite shuffle within WPP’s media agency arm, GroupM, comes at the very top of the organization, as Brian Lesser returns to the company as global CEO this September. Lesser will replace Christian Juhl, who led GroupM for the last five years, ascending to that spot four years after GroupM acquired digital agency Essence in 2015.

A quick survey of former WPP and GroupM executives, some of whom worked with Lesser in his prior GroupM stint when he was CEO of GroupM North America from 2015-17, indicate that he is a strong candidate to raise the visibility and chops of GroupM’s technology, including Choreograph, the media agency network’s data and tech team that operates as part of WPP’s Open platform. 

“Brian is an excellent hire from the Sorrell era ironically,” said one former WPP executive who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Sorrell (Sir Martin Sorrell was longtime CEO and chair of WPP) era, as the exec put it, is defined by numerous acquisitions across the agency and ad-tech spectrum, which contributed greatly to WPP’s dominance of the holding company world over the first two decades of the 2000s. 

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