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[WPP’s next chief executive needs] a global vision of the advertising industry and its drivers and challenges. [They need] deep experience of managing and serving unique multinational clients of global stature, credibility with the City and the global advertising community. Financial integrity and experience are a must – it’s a management task number one. 

[They have] to come from a large (50,000 employees plus) organisation that is similarly driven by talent, and must be able to navigate technology and create imaginative partnerships with technology companies.

A single-minded focus on enhancing the company’s undoubted strengths and motivating the talent running the major divisions is essential.

Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis, warned that while growth in broadband is possible for VodafoneThree, intense competition means it is “not an attractive market”.

He is “a very decent man” in the words of Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis.

Enders says: “It is an extraordinarily demanding job – physically, with huge amounts of travel. It’s a real global job. And it’s a sensitive and difficult job at this time, because of the number of clients with tariff issues, and trade will be a difficult issue throughout the Trump years.”

Research by the company Enders Analysis said Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft have been guilty of “ambivalence and inertia” over the problem.

“At the beginning of 2024, DAZN was talking about reaching break-even,” says Francois Godard, senior media analyst of Enders Analysis. “That was the message. And then, this winter, it changed. They kept the message that they are doing better, but the main message was expansion. It shifted from a focus on break-even to a message of expansion.

“There was the deal in Australia and then the deal with the Saudis. That is probably allowing them to do the deal for the Club World Cup, which will allow them to gain prominence in many other markets where they had a lower profile, like the U.S. That was a big change in emphasis.”

So, how significant do the Club World Cup’s global rights become to a project of this scale?

“A subscription funding model would be antithetical to the BBC’s public service mission, necessarily ending universality of access and undermining its breadth of content,” said analysts at Enders Analysis.