GroupM North America CEO Sharb Farjami announced a major restructuring plan during a town hall meeting on Friday, revealing that between 40% and 45% of the workforce in the U.S. will be moved to new divisions.
Just days before the announcement, GroupM global CEO Brian Lesser sent an internal memo outlining plans to reduce staff as part of a WPP restructuring effort aimed at simplifying the company’s operating model. With the restructuring plan, WPP individual agencies would house dedicated client teams, but no longer operate as distinct business units with separate P&Ls.
“Our success depends on a stronger, more connected company that can deliver even greater value to our clients,” Lesser said. “We’ve had to make difficult decisions as we work to improve our team structure and reduce overlap… This will affect some roles across our markets.”
AdAge had also reported last week that WPP is aiming to rebrand GroupM as WPP Media to reflect a “commitment to operating as one company.”
Media in Canada reached out to GroupM Canada, which declined to comment on the layoffs.
GroupM has 40,000 employees worldwide, more than one-third of WPP’s global workforce (108,044 at year-end 2024).
WPP CEO Mark Read had already said in the company’s annual report that 2025 would be a “transition year” for the media investment division under Lesser, who joined the company in September 2024. In January of this year, GroupM also restructured its leadership team, eliminating global CEO positions for individual agencies and appointing Emily Del Greco as global COO.
GroupM currently operates with a core group of four global agencies, including Mindshare, Wavemaker, EssenceMediacom and T&Pm. According to WPP’s website, the group oversees $63 billion in media budgets for major clients like Amazon and Unilever. Coca-Cola was also a key account for the company since 2021, until it reassigned its North America media account to Publicis Groupe this year.
The news also follows Q4 revenue drop. Overall, WPP creative, PR and specialist agencies experienced full-year revenue declines. GroupM, however, bucked the downward trend with 2.7% like-for-like revenue growth, excluding pass-through costs. The company reported Q4 like-for-like revenue declines (excluding pass-through costs growth) of 1.4% in North America (1.7% in Canada), 5.1% in the U.K. and 4.8% in the rest of world, including a 21.2% drop in China.
CEO Mark Read admitted in the earnings statement that it’s a “tough market out there.”
“We did see growth from our top 25 clients of 2.0% and an improving new business performance in the second half of the year with wins from Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark and Unilever reflecting the strength of our integrated offer,” Read said.
