What you need to know:

• Mindshare CEO Katie Rigg-Smith will exit the media agency after 23 years to become WPP ANZ Chief Strategy Officer.
• Rigg-Smith, GroupM CEO Aimee Buchanan and WPP ANZ President Rose Herceg scotched suggestions of a rift in the GroupM camp.
• Rigg-Smith will stay in the CEO role until her replacement is found - two internal candidates are in play along with external execs. Rigg-Smith will be central in the decision of who replaces her.
• Buchanan said of the type of leader needed for Mindshare: "A bit of disruption is probably not a bad thing but it has to be done with empathy and humanness and not a hierarchical leader". 
• Herceg said Rigg-Smith was "returning to her first love" in strategy, she was "bloody good and I need bloody good in WPP right now".
• There were "pockets of greatness" inside WPP but it needed to be across the entire business. Her broader agenda for the WPP business was for its people to "find joy and excellence...a lot of people have forgotten what a fun and sexy and interesting business we work in".  

Mindshare boss Katie Rigg-Smith will return to her heartland in strategy as WPP’s Chief Strategy Officer after nine years running the media agency. 

Rigg-Smith, Buchanan and Herceg scotched any potential market conjecture that her exit was linked to the arrival of Buchanan as Group’s new CEO. 

Instead, Rigg-Smith said she wanted to return to a strategy role and had flagged to Herceg last year her desire to take on WPP’s CSO role if Herceg landed the top leadership role for WPP’s Australia and New Zealand operations. 

Rumblings within WPP two years ago was that the group’s former CEO Jens Monsees wanted Rigg-Smith to run GroupM but it was a role she didn’t want.  

All three WPP executives were in solidarity on what was behind Rigg-Smith’s move.

Adoration all round

“The truth is when I was interviewing for this [GroupM CEO] role, the person I asked to speak to was Katie,” Buchanan told Mi3.

“She talked me into taking the job. And then when I got in she said she wanted to be upfront with me about going for Rose’s job if she became Country President. So it was long in the making and to be fair, Katie said she didn’t love being a CEO. She loves the product and strategy. I adore her. She’s such a gem of a person. I talk to her about five times a day and she’s been so good to me in the onboarding. There’s nothing [untoward] in there.” 

Rigg-Smith was equally glowing about GroupM’s new boss: “I feel sad leaving her [Buchanan] the most because she's such a gun. My fear has been in announcing this to the market that it would pit two women against each other. I adore Aimee. So no, there's nothing there.”

Buchanan said GroupM and WPP leadership wanted to announce Rigg-Smith’s exit well ahead of any replacement in deference to the veteran Mindshare CEO. 

The search has started for Rigg-Smith’s replacement with at least two internal GroupM candidates in play along with conversations underway with several execs outside WPP – Buchanan expects an announcement within three to six months. Rigg-Smith was playing a central role in choosing her replacement and Buchanan said it would not necessarily be a woman.

Diversity beyond gender

“Diversity comes in many different ways and I want diversity on my ExCo, yes, but that's not just about gender,” Buchanan said. “Katie’s endorsement for that person is a big part of the decision for me. She's here until I find someone but we just thought, given Katie’s tenure it's a much nicer way to go to just celebrate that as a positive story rather than keep it under wraps. She knows that business better than anyone, right. So it's a big part of it. I think her endorsement for that person is a big part of the decision for me.”

Rigg-Smith was handed the Mindshare CEO job by former GroupM Asia-Pacific boss and WPP AUNZ board director John Steedman, who was ousted after attempting to engineer Jens Monsees' exit with WPP’s headquarters in London. Monsees eventually departed after London made a successful takeover bid for the locally listed stake in the ANZ operations it didn’t control.

When asked what sort of new leader and capabilities would be sought for Rigg-Smith’s replacement, Buchanan said: “Culture fit is key for me. It's a very special culture at Mindshare. It's quite unique. There’s a lot of people who've worked together for a very long time. It feels like a family. It's very warm. A bit of disruption is probably not a bad thing but it has to be done with empathy and humanness and not a sort of hierarchical leader. They definitely need that product capability.

"You've had someone like Katie in there shaping the product and I think the people and clients who are garnered around that business will want that sort of strategic leadership and guidance. Now, that doesn't need to be traditional strategy. It could be in another product area, but I think some sort of firm grounding in product is critical.”

Mindshare growth a surprise

Buchanan said it was “a surprise to me from the outside” that Mindshare’s growth in the past year was “double digit because you see the headlines on the big things leaving and you go, 'oh, God, that doesn't seem good'. But Mindshare had double digit growth last year, significant growth, and is in a really good position. It's done that through wins in both Sydney, Melbourne and retention. I think it has an opportunity to perceptually punch harder in the market.”

Herceg, who’s been WPP’s ANZ top role for three weeks, said Rigg-Smith was returning to her “first love in strategy".

"One of our values is extraordinary and you need extraordinary brains," she said. "Katie’s got one and I want her in the centre working with all our clients and all our chief strategy officers inside the agency networks. Katie’s is as bloody good strategist and I need more 'bloody good' in WPP right now.”

Fun and sexy business

So what does WPP look like under Herceg versus the turmoil that has swirled around the group for three years? 

Herceg held her first “Town Hall” session with WPP’s 2,500 staff last week in which she espoused the need for “joy and excellence”. 

“A lot of people have forgotten what a fun and sexy and interesting business we work in,” she told Mi3. “And we are the fun part. And it's exciting and thrilling when you can do your job well and grow a business and show the sales. I just want people to fall in love with what they do.”

Herceg said she received “hundreds of messages” from WPP staffers saying they’d forgotten the enjoyment they could get from their work.

“If you love what you do then you’re going to be outstanding at what you do and then the money comes. I love what I do, I try to be outstanding at what I do. Sometimes I get there, sometimes I reach and I don’t - but I know that I can.” 

Herceg said WPP had “pockets of greatness” but it needed to be across the entire business. “There are areas in which we are good but to be outstanding, it's about training, it's about skilling, it's about craft skills. It's about adjusting the detail. It's about being the best we can be. Again, we've got pockets of that and I want everywhere, everyone to be at that level and to understand how to scrutinise the work and to be very tough on the quality, which means to look at it and go, is this a substantive strategy?”

It included challenging whether WPP had the best-in-market technology footprint, commerce solutions and strategic nous for clients. “But you need to have brains to do that,” she said. “So that means skilling and sometimes reskilling and sometimes upskilling our people.

“I get so excited about putting big talent where they can shine and the idea of unleashing Katie Rigg-Smith In this Chief Strategy Officer role is going to lead the way for us in a lot of these big conversations with our biggest clients.”

But first to the hunt for the next purple leader.