Ewen Sturgeon, CEO – EMEA, WPP Creative.Ewen Sturgeon has been appointed as the EMEA Chief Executive of WPP Creative.
The appointment moves Sturgeon’s role as EMEA Chief Executive of VML to a new group role where he will represent all the WPP Creative agencies across EMEA, which include VML, Ogilvy, Burson, AKQA, Landor and Design Bridge & Partners. Sturgeon reports to Jon Cook, Global Chief Executive of WPP Creative and VML.
A WPP spokesperson said: “As announced during our recent strategy update, WPP is creating a lean regional leadership team to develop the WPP Creative operating model.
“In EMEA, Ewen Sturgeon has been appointed CEO of WPP Creative, representing all the iconic agencies within WPP Creative. The goal of the model is to enhance collaboration, expand capabilities, and make it easier for our clients to access our extensive talent throughout every agency.”
Sturgeon’s appointment follows Patou Nuytemans’ announcement that she will depart as Chief Executive of Ogilvy EMEA at the end of May, with the role not replaced.
In the UK, James Murphy, Chief Executive of Ogilvy Group UK, who reported to Nuytemans, will now dually report to Sturgeon and to Laurent Ezekiel, Global Chief Executive of Ogilvy Group.
Sturgeon was EMEA chief executive of Wunderman Thompson from 2019 and later became Chief Executive of international in 2021. Following Wunderman Thompson’s merger with VMLY&R to form VML, which WPP announced in October 2023, Sturgeon became EMEA Chief Executive of VML.
Previously, he was Chief Operating Officer at Publicis.Sapient International, which he left in 2018.
He started his career in 1992 at The Presentation Company and joined LBi when it bought his agency Wheel in 2005. After Publicis Groupe bought LBi in 2013, he helped integrate it with Digitas, becoming international chief executive at Digitas.
WPP Creative was announced in February this year by WPP chief executive Cindy Rose as part of the holding company’s Elevate28 strategy. WPP Creative, which encompasses WPP’s creative, design, and PR agencies, sits alongside WPP Media, WPP Production and WPP Enterprise Solutions, which is led by Jeff Geheb, who was CEO of enterprise solutions at VML.
At the time, Rose added that the agencies will continue to trade as separate entities but in WPP Creative she is giving them an “operating system”.
In an interview with Campaign following his appointment as WPP Creative’s CEO, Cook said it was not a VML takeover. He said the word “takeover” is one that “would never enter my mindset or person”.
He added: “We’re not the only agency scaling into the model of the future. We’re looking across all of our agencies and seeing what’s working and making sure the cocktail of our future takes aspects of what’s working in every one of our agencies. VML will be one of them.
“But VML is sizeable, it’s a large part of that group from a revenue perspective and that’s because there’s been some success there and we’ve also made the choice to put a lot of capital into VML to do that.”
A version of this article first appeared on Campaign UK.
