Sir Martin Sorrell

Martin Sorrell read economics at Christ's College, Cambridge, and has an MBA from Harvard University. He began his career at Glendinning Associates in Westport, then worked for Mark McCormack at IMG and the retail entrepreneur Jimmy Gulliver, before becoming finance director for the Saatchi brothers. Sorrell bought a stake in a shell company in Kent called Wire & Plastic Products, which made wire baskets for supermarkets. He joined WPP as chief executive in 1986 and transformed it by buying a string of marketing services companies. In 1987 he stunned the agency world with the hostile takeover of top ad agency J Walter Thompson. Two years later he succeeded in another dramatic takeover, this time of Ogilvy and Mather, so securing WPP's place as one of the major players in the global advertising market.