Sir Martin Sorrell leaves WPP in a sorry state

DURING his spectacular rise from London beancounter to the globe-trotting boss of WPP, the advertising powerhouse he created out of a backstreet wire-basket and trolley company, Sir Martin Sorrell was rarely sentimental. The man who helped turn a ramshackle but chic industry into a global force poached accounts mercilessly and often pitted his own firms against each other in the quest for clients.

Not for nothing did the late David Ogilvy, one of the industry’s founding patriarchs, reputedly describe him as an “odious little shit” when WPP came after the Ogilvy Group in the late 1980s at the dawn of its decades-long acquisition spree (see chart). But Ogilvy later became WPP’s non-executive chairman, and the company turned into the world’s largest marketing conglomerate with more than $20bn in annual revenues. In business, Sir Martin charmed as well as cajoled.