John Wren earned a package of almost $70 million last year as part of a new pay incentive that is meant to link his fortunes directly to Omnicom’s performance over the next three years.
Wren, the chairman and chief executive of Omnicom, reduced his salary to $1 and received share options worth $69.3 million in 2025 after agreeing the new deal last May, according to a company filing with the US stock market.
He has the right to “exercise” the option to buy stock at a pre-agreed price of $77.60 per share, but he will only profit on the amount that Omnicom’s share price rises above that threshold. Omnicom’s stock has recently been trading below that level at about $75 per share earlier this week.
Wren’s total 2025 package was $69.9 million as he earned $417,000 in salary in the first five months of the year, plus $169,000 in other benefits, including use of a “corporate aircraft”.
He previously earned a $1million annual salary and related bonuses — his total package was $21.7 million in 2024 — but he gave that up in favour of a $1 salary and stock options.
Rewarding the CEO in options will “maximise the alignment” between “Wren’s incentives” and “the interests of Omnicom’s shareholders” as he integrates the $9 billion acquisition of Interpublic, the filing said.
The company said: “At this pivotal time in our company’s growth and evolution, the compensation committee and full board understood the strategic importance of ensuring Mr Wren’s continued leadership through this period of unprecedented transformational change, integration and opportunity.”
Omnicom awarded Wren the option to buy a total of 4 million of shares over three and a half years when the incentive was agreed last year. These were notionally worth $310 million (£235 million), based on the $77.60 price that the stock was trading at the time.
The 4 million share options are set to vest in equal tranches on a monthly basis from July 2025 until December 2028, and his $69.3 million compensation for 2025 relates to the stock that vested last year.
Omnicom said the actual compensation that Wren is set receive from the incentive is “hypothetical” at this stage. The filing said: “The ultimate value received by Mr. Wren upon the exercise of the option award will depend on the number of options that ultimately vest and the price of the underlying common stock at the time of exercise, as compared to the exercise price of the option.”
“Mr. Wren will not receive any value in respect of this award unless the per-share price of Omnicom’s stock increases above $77.60,” the company added. “These changes are intended to drive long-term shareholder value creation and, as a result, his incentive compensation will be completely at-risk and dependent on Omnicom’s future stock price.”
The US agency group was trading near an all-time high of $103 per share in early December 2024, immediately before it first agreed to buy IPG to create the world's biggest agency group.
The stock ended 2024 at $86 as investors fretted about the risks associated with the all-share deal and the decline continued in 2025 amid wider jitters about the agency sector and the impact of artificial intelligence and US trade tariffs.
Omnicom’s share price dropped to $71.50 by the time the IPG takeover formally completed last November but ended 2025 at $81 after Wren announced a huge restructure, including 4000 job losses.
The stock price rose after Q4 results in February 2026, when Wren doubled the planned savings target from the post-IPG restructure to $1.5 billion, but it fell back below the $77.60 threshold in March in the wake of the US-Israel war with Iran.
Omnicom’s filing also showed Daryl Simm, the co-chief operating officer, earned a package of $10 million and Phil Angelastro, the chief financial officer, earned $8.9 million last year. Half of their bonuses were linked to integrating the IPG deal.
US agency and tech groups tend to pay much higher packages to senior executives than their European counterparts such as Publicis Groupe and WPP.
Arthur Sadoun, the chief executive of Publicis, earned an annual package of €8.2 million ($9.4 million), according to its most recent annual report for 2024. Sadoun is also eligible for a long-term “retention” bonus, which is worth €11.7 million ($13 million) in Publicis shares or ten times his annual salary. The award was first made in 2023 and is set to vest after five years at the end of 2027.
Cindy Rose, who started as chief executive of WPP last September, is set to earn a maximum of $14.7 million a year as the UK agency group recently proposed to increase her package in order to close the pay gap on rivals. WPP cited the higher pay packages at Omnicom, Publicis and other companies as a reason to improve CEO compensation.
Wren has been CEO of Omnicom since 1997 and added the role of chair in 2018. He is expected to keep the role of executive chair and give up the CEO’s job at the end of 2028, according to the filing.
Mary Choski, the lead independent director of Omnicom, and the board “will work with Mr. Wren to identify his successor as CEO to ensure a smooth succession process”, the company said.
Source: Campaign UK
