Laurent Ezekiel, one of WPP’s most senior executives, has quit to join Publicis Groupe.
Ezekiel currently holds a dual role as chief marketing officer at WPP and chief executive of WPP Open X, the holding company’s bespoke global agency for Coca-Cola.
It was not immediately clear what his new job will be at Publicis, where he worked for 16 years before joining WPP in 2019.
He started as chief marketing and growth officer of WPP and played a key role in helping it to win Coca-Cola’s global, integrated account in a hotly contested pitch against Publicis and other rivals in 2021.
He went on to set up WPP Open X to look after the drinks giant and became CEO of the dedicated agency unit in 2022.
He also sits on WPP’s executive committee, which is made up of about 17 of the most senior leaders at the UK-listed agency group.
Ezekiel was previously president of Digitas, North America and International and client leader for GSK at Publicis.
His decision to return to the French agency group follows WPP’s loss of Coca-Cola’s media account in North America to Publicis in March.
Coca-Cola went on to renew the rest of its global agency partnership with WPP in May, and Manuel Arroyo, the global chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola, thanked Ezekiel in a LinkedIn post to announce the renewal.
Coca-Cola spends $5.15 billion a year on advertising expense and has become one of WPP’s most valuable global clients.
According to an internal Coca-Cola memo, seen by Campaign, the brand is working with WPP to identify Ezekiel's successor.
WPP used its relationship with Coca-Cola as a case study at its investor day last year to demonstrate how the agency group is able to offer an integrated, end-to-end solution that encompasses every key discipline, including creative, media, production, public relations and data.
WPP is in the middle of a leadership transition as Mark Read, the chief executive since 2018, is stepping down and Cindy Rose, a Microsoft executive and current non-executive director of WPP, is taking over on 1 September.
Publicis would not comment about Ezekiel.
A WPP spokesperson said: "A successor will be announced shortly."
