Inside WPP's Hidden Restructure: What the ANZ CEO Title Means

WPP has quietly upgraded Rose Herceg's title from president to chief executive officer of its Australia and New Zealand business. It is the first time the holding company has had a CEO in the region since 2021.

The change is modest on the surface. A company spokesperson confirmed it is "a title change only," with no confirmation that Herceg's reporting structure or authority has shifted. But the timing is anything but routine.

A Title That Tells a Story

Herceg took the president role in January 2022, roughly six months after WPP stood down Jens Monsees from the ANZ CEO position. At the time, her role was described as "supporting agency CEOs" and pulling together people and resources for clients. Local agency bosses inside WPP continued to report upward to their global network heads, not to Herceg.

Four years on, Herceg updated her LinkedIn profile to CEO. WPP did not make a formal announcement and declined to say whether anything has changed beyond the name on the door.

That pattern tells its own story. WPP quietly demoted the regional leadership tier in 2022 by installing a president rather than a CEO. Now it quietly reinstates it, without explaining why or what has changed.

Elevate28 and the Bigger Structural Shift

The title change sits inside a much larger overhaul. Under its Elevate28 strategy, WPP is reorganizing from a loose collection of separate agencies into four integrated units: WPP Media, WPP Creative, WPP Production, and WPP Enterprise Solutions. WPP says the plan is aimed at delivering £500 million (roughly US$676 million / A$949 million) in cost savings by 2028.

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CEO Cindy Rose, who took over in September 2025, has been direct about the scale of the change. "We are no longer a holding company," she said during a recent earnings call. "No longer a shopping basket of hundreds of stand-alone businesses." She has pledged the restructure will be complete within 18 months.

As part of the restructure, Ogilvy, VML and AKQA are being folded into a single network called WPP Creative. WPP is also reportedly in discussions to divest Burson, its PR arm, as part of the broader simplification. Burson was formed in 2024 through the merger of BCW and Hill & Knowlton and accounts for roughly 10% of WPP's total business.

What Rivals Have Already Done

The competitive context makes the title reinstatement easier to read. Publicis and Omnicom have both moved to strengthen regional authority in Asia-Pacific through clearer, single P&L structures. Both have local bosses across APAC whose agencies sit under one reporting line.

WPP, by contrast, spent four years managing the ANZ market through a deliberately lower-profile title. Giving Herceg the CEO title signals that WPP is trying to align its visible regional leadership with how its rivals already look, even as the internal structure is still being reorganized.

What Actually Changed?

That is the honest question left unanswered. WPP says this is a title change only. Nothing in the public record indicates Herceg now has different direct reports or a different budget authority.

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What has changed is the context around her. As WPP consolidates from a portfolio of competing standalone agencies into regional operating hubs, a president title would look out of step with the new architecture. Giving Herceg the CEO title may be more about matching a new org chart than expanding her actual power.

Whether the upgrade turns out to be a genuine shift in how ANZ is led, or just a nameplate change, will become clearer over the next 18 months as Herceg executes the Elevate28 restructure at market level.