Sir Martin Sorrell for many needs no introduction. Having started and built WPP into the largest agency group in the world, he is now in his third act building S4 Capital into a very different organisation that, whilst already valued at over £4 billion, is equally a champion for the values of independence.

Session Overview
In these uncertain times, Sir Martin Sorrell says: “There’s Plenty to Be Optimistic about but the Pressure Is On” (LBB Online 2022)
Sir Martin should know as he has managed Agency groups through many periods of turbulence. So it is great that he is to share his views in another Masterclass with Alliance members on how the industry can navigate the next 12 months.

Sir Martin Sorrell
Founder & Executive Chairman

Sir Martin Sorrell is Founder and Executive Chairman of S4 Capital plc, which is building a new age/ new era, purely digital advertising and marketing services business for global, multinational, regional, local clients and millennial-driven influencer brands.

Sir Martin was Founder and CEO of WPP for 33 years, building it from a £1 million “shell” company in 1985 into the world’s largest advertising and marketing services company. When Sir Martin left in April 2018, WPP had a market capitalisation of over £16 billion, revenues of over £15 billion, profits of approximately £2 billion and over 200,000 people in 113 countries. Prior to that, Sir Martin was Group Financial Director of Saatchi & Saatchi plc for 9 years and worked for James Gulliver, Mark McCormack and Glendinning Associates before that.

S4 Capital plc merged with MediaMonks, its content practice, in July 2018 and MightyHive, its data and digital media practice, in December 2018 and has added nine further content and data & digital media companies to both practices in 2019, five in 2020 and eight in 2021 so far. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange under SFOR.L and after a little over three years, S4 Capital plc has almost 6000 people in 33 countries, with a market capitalization of well over $5.0 billion.

Sir Martin supports a number of leading business schools and universities, including his alma maters, Harvard Business School and Cambridge University, where he is an Honorary Fellow at Christ’s College, Cambridge. He also supports a broad range of charities through his family foundation. He has been nominated as one of the TIME 100: The Most Influential People and received the Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award.