WPP India: Organizing the Big Five - creative, media, digital, data and delivery
WPP is refining its lineup and embracing AI-driven change - particularly in media, where GroupM has evolved into WPP Media.
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WPP CEO Mark Read’s decision to step down by the end of 2025 brings to a close a transformative seven-year tenure. Since taking the reins in 2018, following founder Martin Sorrell’s abrupt departure, Read has overseen sweeping structural reforms, agency consolidations and a strategic pivot to AI-driven marketing.
Under his leadership, WPP merged long-standing creative brands such as JWT and Y&R to form VML, and restructured its media portfolio by combining Essence and MediaCom and more recently, rebranding its monolithic GroupM as WPP Media. These moves, coupled with investments in data and AI (including the acquisition of InfoSum and the launch of WPP Open), positioned the group for a more data-intelligent, tech-forward future.
WPP India’s Integrated Playbook
In India, WPP has adopted a five-pronged strategy, organizing its business across Creative, Media, Digital, Data, and Global Delivery. At the helm is CVL Srinivas, WPP’s India Country Manager since 2017, who has played a key role in consolidating operations and scaling WPP’s influence in the region.
A WPP veteran, Srinivas first joined JWT India (then Hindustan Thompson Associates) in 1994 and later returned to the network in 2013 after leadership stints elsewhere. He also led GroupM South Asia until 2018. Today, he continues to coordinate WPP’s expanding footprint, from marquee agencies like Ogilvy to the rapidly growing delivery centres and newly minted WPP Media.
The May 2025 launch of WPP Media represents a defining moment. It brings WPP’s media investments under a single global identity, designed around AI integration, shared infrastructure and stronger compliance protocols.
Creative Agencies
As part of its global creative realignment, WPP recently moved Grey under Ogilvy’s leadership, ending its previous reporting into AKQA Group. Ogilvy is globally led by Devika Bulchandani, with VR Rajesh heading Ogilvy India. Laura Maness, Grey’s global CEO, now reports into Bulchandani.
Following the 2023 merger of Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R, the new VML entity is now one of the largest creative agencies globally. In India, Babita Baruah took over as CEO in January 2024, succeeding Shamsuddin Jasani.
Meanwhile, Hogarth, WPP’s creative production agency, continues to scale under Karthik Nagarajan, who was appointed CEO in 2023. Hogarth is seen as one of WPP’s fastest-growing units, providing production and content solutions at scale.
Media Reinvention
The most significant shift came with the May 2025 rebranding of GroupM as WPP Media, signaling a bold step into the AI-driven future of media. This followed GroupM’s earlier restructuring in January 2025, where global CEO roles across Mindshare, Wavemaker, and EssenceMediacom were phased out in favor of an integrated leadership model.
A WPP veteran and GroupM boss Prasanth Kumar now leads WPP Media India. Legacy brands like Mindshare (led by Amin Lakhani), Wavemaker (with Ajay Gupte as chief), and EssenceMediacom (Navin Khemka at the helm), continue to operate under the WPP Media umbrella, unified by shared talent, tech stacks and AI-driven planning via WPP Open.
Global Delivery Centres (GDCs)
India remains central to WPP’s global delivery strategy. Its Global Delivery Centres (GDCs), located in Mumbai, Gurugram, and Chennai, are being rapidly scaled to support services like generative AI, cloud engineering, commerce enablement, and extended reality (XR) solutions.
In 2024, WPP appointed Prashant Mehta as Managing Director of its GDCs. Under his leadership, WPP is targeting an expansion to over 3,000 employees by mid-2025, making the India GDC one of the company’s most critical innovation and operations hubs worldwide.
