Martin Sorrell, pictured with Ferus, says he was determined to ‘push at an open door’ with his new ventureMark Read, chief executive of the advertising giant WPP, embroiled himself in an ageism row last month after commenting that the company behind Ogilvy and Wunderman Thompson was lucky that its staff had an average age of less than 30 and did not “hark back to the 1980s”. Read apologised — but, as with so much of what WPP does and says, his remark touched a nerve with its exiled founder. “I’m part of the endangered species,” says 75-year-old Sir Martin Sorrell with a wry smile. “But on a serious note, it is a problem because these companies think, wrongly, that older people can’t adapt to a changing world, and that’s a mistake. A lot of people that have gone from WPP have a lot

Source: The Times September 05, 2020 23:00 UTC