Essence’s Christian Juhl will succeed Kelly Clark as the global CEO of GroupM, WPP’s investment wing, on October 1.
Juhl has led Essence – now a GroupM agency – for five years as global CEO, during which time he led the agency’s 2015 acquisition by WPP. He has also held roles with Publicis, Razorfish and USWeb/CKS.
As global CEO of GroupM, Juhl will be responsible for WPP’s media-focused companies, including Mindshare, MediaCom, Wavemaker, Essence, m/SIX and Xaxis.
According to GroupM, it employs 35,000 people and has $48bn in annual billings.
“I’m truly honored and grateful for this opportunity to help deliver on Mark’s vision for WPP as a creative transformation company,” said Juhl.
“Media frames the future for creativity, and GroupM’s incredible agency brands, talent, client partnerships, and scale give us the unique opportunity to help reshape the industry and the way people think about advertising.”
Meanwhile, Clarke is stepping back from leading the group, which he has done since 2016 under a three-year commitment to prepare the business for the future. He will continue as a senior advisor to both GroupM and WPP.
Commenting on the appointment, WPP’s CEO Mark Read said: “Christian has the right combination of leadership, people and technology skills to build the modern media company, something he has demonstrated extraordinarily well at Essence.
“We have a great number of talented people across GroupM and its agencies, and I have every confidence in Christian’s ability to be an outstanding leader to them and an outstanding partner to our clients.”
