WPP has appointed Tyler Turnbull, the global chief executive of McCann, to lead WPP Creative as its global CEO — one of the most senior creative leadership moves of the year, confirmed by the holding company this week and reported by Adweek and Ad Age among others.
Turnbull took the top job at McCann only in December 2025, steering the network through its integration into Omnicom following Omnicom’s acquisition of Interpublic Group, which left the combined group with three global creative networks: McCann, BBDO and TBWA. He now crosses to WPP, where he is expected to succeed Jon Cook, with trade reports indicating Cook steps down by March.
His mandate, as WPP framed it in its announcement, is to deepen the connections between the group’s creative agency brands and its capabilities in media, data, production, commerce and technology — in effect, making the full holding company easier for clients to buy as one connected offer, powered by its WPP Open platform, without flattening the individual agency cultures inside it.
WPP chief executive Cindy Rose described the hire as a signal that creativity sits at the centre of the group’s growth plans. Turnbull, for his part, has said his ambition is to set a new standard for the industry while protecting the distinct cultures of the agency brands, and to create the conditions for top talent to do career-best work.
The appointment continues a remarkable run for Turnbull through the industry’s restructuring. He spent more than a decade at FCB, joining in 2014 to turn around its Canadian business — winning clients including Home Depot, Air Canada and BMW Canada — before leading the New York office, becoming North America CEO in 2019 and global CEO in 2022. FCB has since been folded into BBDO under the Omnicom-IPG combination. Before the WPP move, Turnbull had also been considered for the global CEO role at Ogilvy, which went to Laurent Ezekiel in late 2025.
The move lands in a holding-company landscape being redrawn by consolidation and AI. Omnicom’s enlarged group is still integrating the IPG networks; WPP is betting that a single creative leader with a transformation record can pull its famous agency names into a simpler, more integrated client offer. Rival groups are making parallel bets that clients want fewer, deeper partnerships.
Personnel moves at this level tend to precede account moves. Clients of both groups will be watching for the usual consequences — leadership changes below the top, sharper positioning of individual networks, and renewed competition for the largest global assignments — as the new structure settles into 2027.
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