WPP’s Lindsay Pattison moves from overseeing clients to staff

WPP’s global chief client officer Lindsay Pattison has made the unusual move to global chief people officer.

Pattison has overseen WPP’s relationships with its largest clients since 2018, a role that includes managing global client leaders.

She will now take over responsibility for the advertising company’s culture, including managing human resources for its more than 100,000 employees (headcount was 115,473 as of December 2022) and its talent strategy.

The role was previously held by Jennifer Remling, who is leaving to become chief people officer at Warner Bros. Discovery.

Remling has been global chief people officer for WPP for two years; she previously held the same role at its subsidiaries GroupM and Essence. Prior to joining WPP, she led R/GA’s talent strategy.

Remling will stay on to help with the transition until the end of the year; she and Pattison will take up their new positions in January 2024. 

Pattison’s successor as global chief client officer will be announced “shortly,” WPP said in a press release.

WPP chief executive Mark Read said in a statement Pattison has become known as a leader “who can identify and develop top talent.” 

“She has a deep understanding of our business, people and culture, and her strong commercial focus will help to drive our future people strategy,” Read said.

Prior to overseeing the client function for WPP, Pattison was worldwide chief transformation officer for GroupM and the CEO of Maxus, which was merged with MEC in 2007 to become Wavemaker.

While at Maxus, she launched mentoring initiative Walk The Talk, which later became a global initiative for all of WPP. More than 3,000 women leaders have participated to date, WPP said.

WPP said Pattison is “committed” to improving diversity at the highest levels of business, including participating in WPP’s diversity and inclusion council and sponsoring its Elevate program for Black women talent. She was a former president of U.K.-based women’s membership organization the Women in Advertising and Communications Leadership.

Pattison is also an independent non-executive director for the Rugby World Cup (England 2025) Limited, which will deliver the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2025. 

She also serves on the board of beauty and wellness company Waldencast, the advisory board of Planet First Partners, Meta’s global client council and the U.K. Effies advisory board.

Pattison said: “Our business and our clients succeed when we have the best, most highly motivated talent. Our most valuable assets are our people, and creating the culture and environment where they can do the work of their lives is both what excites me about this new role, and what will deliver results for our clients.”