Jobs could be at risk at WPP as its new chief executive has launched a review designed to revive the advertising group’s fortunes after a fresh profit warning.
Cindy Rose announced the review on Thursday, saying she was taking action to address “unacceptable” performance at the company, which has struggled to stem a growing exodus of clients and compete with the AI and data capabilities of its rivals.
The former Microsoft executive said WPP, which lost its top spot as the world’s largest advertising agency by revenue to Publicis last year, would soon become a “much simpler” business that would be “pushing harder” into technology to get growth.
The comments raised the prospect of potential job losses across its 100,000-strong global workforce.
The company said its headline operating profit margin would now be lower than expected, sending shares down by 16% on Thursday to about 302p, their lowest level since 1998. WPP had already warned on annual profits in July and it shares have fallen more than 60% since the start of 2025.
“I acknowledge that our recent performance is unacceptable and we are taking action to address this,” said Rose, who took over the top role in September after six years on WPP’s board.
“To deliver performance improvements, we will position our offering to be much simpler, more integrated, powered by data and AI, efficiently priced and designed to deliver growth and business outcomes for our clients,” Rose said, adding that she would be “dramatically simplifying how we organise ourselves internally, as well as building a high-performance team culture”.
Rose said the company would be “pushing harder” on using tech and would focus on “cost efficiency”. WPP will set out further details of the plans early next year.
WPP now expects “revenue less pass-through costs” – a figure that accounts for fees paid to external suppliers – to fall by between 5.5% and 6% in 2025, marking a downgrade on its previous forecasts for a drop of 3% to 5%. It also estimated that the headline operating profit margin would come in at about 13%, just below the bottom of its previous range.
Rose was appointed as the chief executive in September in order to implement a sweeping restructure to turn around the ailing London-listed company. She replaced Mark Read, a WPP veteran who worked with the company for 30 years.
She said: “There is a lot to do and it will take time to see the impact, but in my first 60 days we are already moving at pace with some initiatives already announced and more to come.
“We know what it takes to win: we are optimistic, energised and confident that we’re building the right plan and the right culture to secure a bright future for WPP, our people, our clients and our shareholders.”
