Global President, Social Influencer

WPP is a single company: four operating units, four regions, four practices – all united by one platform, WPP Open. This is a WPP that is simpler to work with and built to win. As part of the Elevate28 strategy, the company is rewiring itself around AI-powered creativity, a simplified operating model, a sharper client experience, and a high-performance, talent-driven culture. Few areas of marketing are growing faster than social and influencer — and WPP is establishing dedicated practice leadership to match.

The Global President, Social Influencer will provide dedicated global leadership for WPP’s Social Influencer Practice — unifying the social and influencer expertise that lives today within the agencies of WPP Media and WPP Creative, while building the next generation of social and influencer capability, fit for the future. This is not a coordination role. It is the leadership of a practice that will define what world-class looks like in the influencer era and make WPP the undisputed leader in social-first, influencer-led brand building.

The discipline has changed. The influencer economy is now a multi-hundred-billion-dollar industry, and social platforms have become the primary surface on which brands are discovered, built and bought. Influencers are simultaneously media channel, production studio and commerce engine. AI is rewriting how content is made, personalized and found — from generative creative and agentic workflows to social search and AI-mediated discovery. Clients are no longer buying social campaigns and influencer activations as separate line items; they are buying outcomes in culture, community and commerce. They need one partner who can orchestrate all of it at global scale.

The role reports jointly to Jon Cook, Global CEO of WPP Creative, and Brian Lesser, Global CEO of WPP Media, with an enterprise-wide mandate to unify WPP’s social and influencer capabilities across creative, media and technology. Supported by a WPP Executive Steering Committee, the role is uniquely positioned to shape strategy at the very highest levels of the organization. WPP Open and Open Intelligence give this leader a genuine, defensible advantage in connecting influencers, content, data and media investment in ways competitors cannot.

WPP’s practices give client teams direct access to capability in high-growth areas of marketing. They connect client teams with the best talent and tools across the company — regardless of agency brand or operating unit — and help identify where to build and scale capability to meet evolving client demand. Each practice has dedicated global leadership and works alongside Global Client Leaders and client teams around the world to connect the right practices to the right briefs, faster and more easily. Tools and expertise developed in one part of the business can be accessed by others, helping clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver.

The Social Influencer Practice brings that model to the discipline. Today, social and influencer capability is distributed: social-first creative, community management and influence teams inside the group’s creative agencies — including VML, Ogilvy and AKQA — and paid social, influencer commerce, investment and measurement inside WPP Media, alongside specialist and regional teams. This leader sets the vision and holds the standard for all of it — a single, coherent point of view for the group’s clients — and builds the capability that does not yet exist anywhere in the network, supported by a dedicated Global Operations Lead responsible for the practice’s operating model, integration delivery and measurement alignment. The practice makes it easier for clients to access the full breadth of WPP’s social and influencer capability — and ensures our exceptional people are connected to the work where they can have the greatest impact.

• →Influencer economy & practice — lead the future of how brands earn attention. Build a category-defining global practice spanning influencer strategy and talent partnerships, always-on social, community building, platform-native content, social commerce and influencer-led commerce — with influencer-led culture at its center.
• →Enterprise social & influencer strategy — define one WPP-wide point of view on social-first, influencer-led brand building. Set the group’s strategy, offer architecture and standards so that every client, in every market, experiences the same world-class proposition.
• →Practice unification — set the agenda for unifying the social and influencer capabilities that live across WPP Media and WPP Creative — one point of view, one offer architecture, one standard — directing a dedicated Global Operations Lead who runs the practice’s operating model and integration delivery.
• →Next-generation capability — build what does not yet exist. AI-native influencer tooling, agentic content workflows, influencer identity and synthetic media governance, social search and AI-mediated discovery, and influencer measurement tied directly to business outcomes — the capabilities that will define the discipline over the next five years.
• →WPP Open & Open Intelligence — embed WPP’s agentic marketing platform and privacy-first intelligence layer into how the practice operates — using data and AI to identify influencers, predict cultural moments, optimize investment in real time and prove business impact in ways competitors cannot.
• →Platform & influencer ecosystem partnerships — own WPP’s enterprise relationships with the platforms and ecosystems where the influencer economy lives — TikTok, Meta, YouTube, Snap and emerging platforms, influencer marketplaces and talent ecosystems — converting partnership into privileged capability for clients.
• →Practice leadership team — build and lead the practice’s global leadership team — including a dedicated Global Operations Lead — attracting a high-performing, influencer-fluent bench and setting the culture, standards and ambition of the practice.

Build and grow a category-defining global influencer practice that delivers meaningful growth for WPP and our clients, with social-first, influencer-led brand building at its center. Lead always-on social, influencer strategy and talent partnerships, new business wins, community building, platform-native content, social commerce and influencer-led commerce — using generative AI and agentic tools to scale culturally resonant work.

Own the vision for one WPP social and influencer proposition: client teams connected with the best talent and tools across the company, regardless of agency brand or operating unit. Set the strategic priorities for the practice’s operations function — which delivers the integration, standards and measurement alignment behind that vision — and integrate social and influencer into the broader WPP model.

Define and build the future of the discipline: AI-native influencer tooling and agentic workflows, influencer identity and synthetic media governance, social search and AI-mediated discovery, and measurement frameworks that connect influencer investment to commercial outcomes. Anticipate where platforms, influencers and consumer behavior are heading — and get there first.

Define how WPP Open and Open Intelligence power the practice. Bring hands-on understanding of generative AI, agentic workflows, and social and influencer analytics to reshape what a modern social and influencer offer looks like and prove commercial impact.

Build and hold C-level relationships, framing social and influencer as a driver of business growth, brand value and commerce rather than a downstream channel. Work alongside Global Client Leaders and client teams around the world to connect the practice to the right briefs, faster and more easily — and lead multi-partner, integrated client solutions across a complex global organization.

Lead the global practice and its leadership team, including the Global Operations Lead. Attract, develop and retain diverse, modern talent — including influencers, social-native operators and AI-fluent marketers — and build a culture where they thrive.

WPP assesses, develops and promotes its enterprise leaders against eight leadership dimensions — the character of the WPP Enterprise Leader. Candidates for this role will be evaluated against these dimensions, and the successful leader will be expected to model them across the network.

• Transformational — Leads change with vision, courage and conviction — and earns trust in how the change is led, not just what is changed. Sees what’s next before it’s obvious and brings people with them.
• Talent First — Leads through service to the team and the client. Multiplies the impact of others rather than concentrating it in themselves. Builds benches, not bottlenecks.
• Accountable — Owns outcomes, honours commitments, and takes the call when it’s hard. No drift, no delegation of difficult truths. Action-oriented; biased toward the move.
• Growth Mindset — Learns fast, adapts faster, and gets better on purpose. Treats setbacks as feedback, not verdict — and creates the psychological safety for others to do the same.
• Adaptable — Navigates ambiguity with calm. Flexes style, pace and approach to fit the moment, the market and the client — without losing the line.
• Commercially Capable — Fluent in the economics of our clients and our business. Drives sustainable, profitable growth — not just revenue. Operationally capable, rises to the occasion, and never settles.
• Client Obsessed — Starts and ends with the client. Clients feel partnership, not vendor — and they say so, without being asked. Maintains momentum on what matters most to them.
• “One WPP” Operator — Humble, enterprise-first thinking. Puts the whole of WPP ahead of the part. Leaves teams, businesses and the institution better than they found them.

• 15+ years of progressive leadership in social, influencer or digital marketing, with at least 5 years at global head or C-suite-adjacent level
• Proven track record building and dramatically growing a significant social or influencer business at global scale, with meaningful global client management
• A genuine, visible point of view on the future of the influencer economy — having built or led businesses that already operate with social, influencer and community-led brand building at their center
• Deep, senior-level relationships across the platform ecosystem (TikTok, Meta, YouTube, Snap and emerging platforms) and the influencer talent and marketplace landscape
• AI- and data-native: hands-on fluency in generative AI, agentic tools, social and influencer analytics, and privacy-safe data collaboration
• Exceptional C-suite client relationships and a track record of new business wins, framing social and influencer as a driver of business growth, brand value and commerce
• Proven ability to lead horizontally across a federated or matrixed organization — aligning multiple agencies and business units, including capability they do not directly control, into one coherent offer
• Global perspective: experience leading distributed teams across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, with cultural fluency to match
• A calculated risk-taker who moves with urgency, experiments openly and leads confidently through significant change
• Proven ability to attract, develop and retain diverse, modern talent, including non-traditional profiles such as influencers and social-native operators

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