WPP Taps AT&T's Kirk McDonald to Run GroupM in North America
August 18 2020 - 12:59PM
Dow Jones News
By Alexandra Bruell
WPP PLC has hired AT&T Inc.'s Kirk McDonald as the chief
executive of North America for its GroupM ad-buying unit, the
latest in a string of executive changes at both companies.
Mr. McDonald, who had been chief business officer and interim
head of AT&T's advertising-technology unit Xandr, will report
to Christian Juhl, global CEO of GroupM.
"Kirk brings a unique view of the market in that he has
experience in media, technology and marketing," Mr. Juhl said.
Mr. McDonald's move follows the exit of other leaders from
Xandr, which was absorbed by AT&T's WarnerMedia division
earlier this year but remained a separate team. Xandr President
Rick Welday left last September, as the ad unit began to operate
more closely with WarnerMedia, and Brian Lesser resigned as Xandr's
chief executive in March.
Mike Welch, who ran product and business development at Xandr,
will become its head, a company spokesman said.
GroupM, which houses ad-buying shops Mindshare, MediaCom,
Wavemaker and Essence, has had its own leadership shake-up in
recent years. Mr. Juhl took the top job last October. Tim Castree,
who had become North American CEO in December 2018, departed in
late 2019.
Now Mr. McDonald is helping agency leads in the U.S. and Canada
use the resources within GroupM to reach consumers for their
marketer clients.
Mr. McDonald said he is looking forward to working at a company
where he can use an abundance of marketing tools to create new ad
experiences for consumers.
"Doing that on the publisher side you never have enough scale,"
he added. "Doing it for hundreds if not thousands of brands around
the globe really felt powerful."
Before joining AT&T, Mr. McDonald was president of
advertising technology firm PubMatic. He previously held roles with
Time Inc. and CNET Networks.
Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 18, 2020 12:44 ET (16:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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