Source: Adweek
WPP’s Grey Group yesterday announced its most significant leadership change in more than a decade, promoting Michael Houston to the global chief executive officer role.
Houston will oversee all of the network’s 430-plus offices and approximately 6,500 employees around the world. His predecessor Jim Heekin, who became CEO of Grey Group in 2005 and chairman the following year, will step into the executive chairman role, effective immediately.
The news comes on Grey’s centennial. Larry Valenstein and Arthur Fatt started the company as Grey Studios in August 1917.
At 45, Houston is one of the youngest chief executives in the ad industry. He is also the only African American currently leading a top 10, holding company-owned agency, and he believes that gathering a group informed by different experiences will be a key part of helping Grey retain its competitive edge.
As the newly promoted CEO tells it, the first half of Grey’s life to date was about turning Valenstein and Fatt’s project into a sustainable organization. For the following four decades, Meyer worked to make that network global before selling to WPP in 2005.
“The next 10 years were where Jim came in, and he very squarely had his eye on creativity,” Houston said. “The coming five years—not that I will only be around for five—are about redefining and opening the definition of what is creative. There’s a greater urgency around what we need to do today than we’ve ever had in our history. And the time line is shrinking.”
