GroupM appoints Christian Juhl as CEO

WPP, the world’s largest media investment organisation, has hired Christian Juhl as the CEO of its subsidiary GroupM.

GroupM is the company’s media-buying operation, and Juhl will assume the role from October 1. 

Juhl succeeds Kelly Clark and will be responsible for the vision, strategy and operations of WPP’s media-focused companies.

Juhl is currently global CEO of  data measurement-driven agency Essence, which was acquired by WPP in 2015 and is now a sub-brand of GroupM. Prior to that, Juhl held roles at Publicis, Razorfish and USWeb/CKS.

Mark Read, CEO of WPP, 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.”

Juhl said: “I’m truly honored and grateful for this opportunity to help deliver on Mark’s vision for WPP as a creative transformation company. 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.” 

Outgoing CEO Clark added: “Today, we’re stronger and better-positioned to help our clients win in an intensely competitive business environment,” Kelly said. “I know Christian will work well with our leadership team to build further and faster on our ability to contribute to client growth. All of us in GroupM have an inspiring new leader.”