Chief Information Officer for Business Solutions

WPP stands as a leader in creative transformation, harnessing the power of innovation to foster better futures for our workforce, environment, clients, and communities.

Being part of WPP means joining a global community of over 115,000 skilled professionals across 110 countries, with headquarters located in major cities worldwide.

We specialize in generating transformative ideas and results for our clients through a comprehensive suite of services that includes communications, experience, commerce, and technology.

Our esteemed agencies collaborate with some of the largest corporations and organizations globally, including Ford, Unilever, P&G, Google, HSBC, and the UN. WPP proudly serves 61 of the FTSE 100, 307 of the Fortune Global 500, all 30 of the Dow Jones 30, and 62 of the NASDAQ 100. We are recognized as a leader in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and rank 20th in the FTSE 100 for Women on Boards.

Currently, WPP is spearheading the most extensive business transformation in the marketing and advertising industry. With the recent appointment of Dominic Shine as our Global CIO, we are enhancing our Enterprise Technology capabilities across the organization. A crucial aspect of this transformation involves fortifying the Global Enterprise Technology Leadership Team and implementing a new operational model that unites over 2,500 technology professionals into a cohesive global team dedicated to supporting the ongoing evolution of our agencies and functions. We seek a distinctive c-suite level candidate to fulfill a pivotal role within our organization.

This position encompasses two primary responsibilities: acting as the CIO of Business Platforms and leading the strategic direction and implementation of global enterprise platforms and applications in collaboration with our WPP executive committee, which includes leaders from our agencies. The successful candidate will manage a team of business platform leaders across our three agency clusters: Creative, Media and Production, and PR and Specialist. This role entails comprehensive responsibility for the development, operation, and enhancement of enterprise platforms, as well as tailoring technology solutions specific to each agency cluster to drive business growth (including Workday, Maconomy, Dynamics, Salesforce, Wrike, and Monday).

Additionally, this role will serve as the Corporate CIO and strategic technology partner to the WPP executive team and leaders of group functions, including the CEO, CFO, CPO, COO, and Chief Marketing and Growth Officer, facilitating business transformation across the organization. This position will closely collaborate to integrate enterprise technology into our broader global operational framework, partnering with our Chief Transformation Officer and key stakeholders to revamp the WPP back-office operating model and associated processes.

The ideal candidate will be an experienced leader adept at influencing and advising c-suite executives on technology decisions and strategies, while also addressing and transforming a fragmented legacy system landscape (e.g., over 300 ERP instances) and rationalizing thousands of applications within a FTSE 100 company. The focus will be on driving consistency, enterprise-wide buy-in, and adoption, while continuing to develop platforms tailored to each agency cluster to facilitate business expansion.

Key Responsibilities: Strategy & Planning

• Collaborate on the development of the Enterprise Technology strategy aligned with WPP's overall business objectives, translating it into both long-term (3-5 years) and short-term (1-2 years) plans for the Corporate CIO division.
• Provide insights into Corporate, HQ, and Functional strategies, driving proactive technology recommendations in line with the overall Technology Roadmap for each function.
• Oversee annual financial planning and budgeting for Enterprise Technology and the Corporate CIO division, establishing financial KPIs and milestones linked to broader Enterprise Technology targets.
• Establish and monitor success metrics and KPIs to evaluate the strategic impact and value of Enterprise Technology across the organization.
• Co-develop the Enterprise Technology Investment Roadmap, assessing investment impact and value across the organization.
• Promote the adoption of Enterprise Platforms across agencies and markets in collaboration with respective Agency CIOs and TechOps Leads.
• Align Corporate strategy with Enterprise Technology strategy through the development of Enterprise, Business, and Corporate platforms, supporting the adoption of inter-agency and service platforms.

Enterprise/ Business/ Corporate Platforms and Enterprise Architecture

• Manage and oversee an enterprise-level perspective of the platforms (enterprise, corporate/agency & business), services, and applications landscape across Enterprise Technology.
• Maintain an enterprise platform roadmap to meet the demand for Agency and Corporate enterprise technology.
• Collaborate with Agency CIOs to formulate strategies that encourage the adoption of enterprise and business platforms across agencies.
• Establish standards and best practices for product/platform development across Agencies, Corporate, and TechOps.
• Develop standards, best practices, policies, and processes to enable Enterprise Technology and respective teams to create and implement a coherent and consistent enterprise-wide technology architecture.
• Work with respective CIOs and TechOps to identify, recommend, develop, implement, and support cost-effective technology solutions.
• Manage risks associated with information and Enterprise Technology assets through the establishment and enforcement of architectural standards and processes.
• Advocate for and educate peers, subordinates, and senior management on architectural strategies, principles, and standards.

Relationship Management & Programme Oversight

• Manage key stakeholders (including Corporate Leaders, Regional Leads, and Functional leads in TechOps, other CIOs, core and enabling functions) across WPP, driving the Enterprise Technology strategy and proactively managing demand.
• Collaborate with Agency CIOs, Tech Ops, and the Transformation team to identify the impact of initiatives on Corporate/HQ and respective regions, including benefits, risks, context, insights, and feedback.

Financial Planning & Management

• Conduct annual financial planning for the Corporate enterprise technology expenditure, balancing demand and supply across global and functional targets.
• Forecast, plan, submit, and monitor the WPP Enterprise Technology Corporate Budget, providing support and insights for the Corporate Enterprise Technology Annual Budget.
• Oversee business case expenditures and manage financial targets, driving value realization from respective platforms, projects, and initiatives within the division.

TechOps & Operational Service Assurance

• Ensure service assurance and address Corporate/HQ service demand; collaborate effectively with TechOps to establish robust service delivery and conflict resolution mechanisms.
• Oversee assurance of Enterprise Technology risk and compliance for Corporate.

Technology Demand Management

• Address Corporate demand through stakeholder relationship management, proactive technology advisory engagement, and end-to-end ownership of Enterprise Technology delivery through respective capabilities within the CIO division; Platforms, Service, Portfolio & Transformation, Risk, and Security.
• Oversee the development of technology business cases for new enterprise technology demand across regions and markets, ensuring savings are achieved and actions are taken to resolve issues related to value creation.
• Manage Corporate Enterprise Technology demand forecasting, planning, and management in accordance with governance requirements.
• Monitor and report on Corporate Enterprise Technology demand performance, risk, and impact.
• Address ad hoc Corporate/Functional demand conflicts, collaborating with key stakeholders to find resolutions.

People Management

• Ensure the Corporate CIO division possesses the necessary skills and capabilities aligned with the strategic direction of Enterprise Technology, developing a workforce plan to attract, recruit, retain, and develop global business partners.
• Provide line-management support for Platform Leads, Corporate Transformation & Portfolio Leads, Corporate Service Leads, Corporate Architecture Lead, and R&C/Security Partner, including oversight of talent management and development activities.
• Collaborate closely with Finance, HR, and Procurement Partners to achieve organizational and financial outcomes.

Experience

• Proven experience in deploying enterprise-wide platforms across a large, complex organization.
• Successful track record of working with other leaders within a highly matrixed structure, ensuring alignment and accountability through direct reports (business platform leads) and agency CIOs to achieve results.
• Expert knowledge and experience with key platforms currently utilized across WPP, such as Microsoft, Maconomy, Workday, and UHub.
• Ability to build diverse, augmented teams with the right mix of permanent, fixed-term, and third-party resources to achieve program outcomes while maintaining a focus on value and cost.
• Strong portfolio management skills across multiple enterprise technology platform programs, considering value, timing, and rollout of these enterprise solutions.
• Experience in designing enterprise target state architecture, operating models, and technology choices within a large, FTSE100-equivalent organization.

Skills

• Extensive experience in the large-scale implementation of back-office technologies in major global organizations related to functions such as HR, Finance, and ERPs.
• Proficient in operating model design and organizational transformation, with a strong ability to define target state organizational structures and implement a matrix structure of business platform leads across each CIO organization.
• Strong capability to guide corporate and agency senior stakeholders in balancing group and agency objectives concerning platform decisions.
• Ability to effectively communicate the value of enterprise platforms while encouraging agencies to leverage enterprise solutions over localized alternatives.
• Executive stakeholder management skills, capable of fostering key technology partnerships and presenting to board-level and c-suite stakeholders, reviewing requirements and serving as an escalation point.

Behaviours

• Executive c-suite business partnering experience, assisting senior stakeholders in defining and refining their technology and product strategy and roadmap.
• Strong understanding of the WPP/advertising business model and end users, with in-depth knowledge of how technology, particularly Enterprise Technology infrastructure, supports and enables that model.
• Global perspective and experience in delivering platform rollouts on an international scale, including an understanding of the challenges and nuances of global operations.
• Strong commercial acumen and a drive to negotiate favorable contractual terms alongside procurement with key partners, ensuring efficiency from current teams (internal and partners) to achieve cost-effective outcomes.

WPP is an equal opportunity employer, considering applicants for all positions without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, age, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, military/veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical or mental disability. We are committed to creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity and inclusion, striving to recruit a diverse slate of candidates to help us achieve that goal.

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