Laurent Ezekiel, one of WPP’s most senior executives, who quit to join arch-rival Publicis Groupe in July, is poised to do a major U-turn and stay with his current employer.
Multiple sources told Campaign that WPP is lining up a new, bigger role for Ezekiel, who has most recently held dual roles as chief executive of WPP Open X, the bespoke agency that serves Coca-Cola, and chief marketing officer of WPP.
His new role is believed to be part of a broader management shake-up by Cindy Rose, the new chief executive of the British agency group.
She is expected to announce the changes as soon as today (5 September).
Ezekiel’s expected decision to pull out of his planned move to Publicis would appear to be a coup for Rose in her first week in the job after starting on 1 September.
WPP would not immediately comment on Ezekiel when Campaign contacted the company.
Publicis did not comment about Ezekiel when contacted by Campaign.
Ezekiel could not be reached for comment.
Campaign broke the news on July 23 that Ezekiel was leaving WPP, where he has worked since 2019, to join Publicis.
The French agency group has never publicly confirmed that Ezekiel was rejoining or given any indication about what his role was going to be.
His departure was seen as a blow to WPP, which had issued an unscheduled profit warning on 9 July, partly because of a string of major account losses, including Coca-Cola’s North America media account and Mars’ global media account—both to Publicis.
Ezekiel previously worked at Publicis for 16 years before joining WPP in 2019 as CMO.
He helped WPP win Coca-Cola’s global integrated account in 2021 in a major consolidation and went on to set up WPP Open X as a special agency unit for the client.
Big agency groups compete over top talent because key executives can play a pivotal role in winning business and managing clients. There are sometimes legal battles if companies choose to enforce long notice periods and tough non-compete and non-solicit clauses in employment contracts.
There have been other cases where top executives have done a U-turn about leaving their existing agency employer.
Alex Hesz, the then global chief strategy officer of DDB, quit for Dentsu but pulled out shortly before his start date in 2022 and stayed with parent company Omnicom. He went on to join Interpublic in 2024.
WPP is facing its second year of declining revenues. The company said Mark Read, the chief executive since 2018, was stepping down on June 9 and announced Rose, a Microsoft executive, as his successor on July 10.
She knows WPP well because she was a non-executive director on the board from 2019 until her appointment as CEO.
Rose introduced herself to WPP’s 104,000 staff in a global town hall, live from New York on September 4.
