Podcast: How New Agency Leaders Should Make Their Mark
In a recent podcast, Grey London’s Conrad Persons offered advice for new agency leaders on navigating their roles. He emphasized the need to balance making bold changes with understanding what to preserve in the existing culture. Persons also highlighted the importance of building trust through transparency by explaining decisions and inviting feedback from all levels.
- Before becoming CEO of Grey London in April 2025, Conrad Persons served as the agency's president for 18 months. His career also includes founding the boutique consultancy Mash, which was later acquired by WPP, and holding senior roles at Ogilvy and Kantar in New York and Tokyo. - Persons' leadership team at Grey London includes Chief Creative Officer Helen Rhodes, Chief Strategy Officer Tarek Sioufi, and Managing Director Jonny Tennant-Price. - His appointment as CEO coincided with a significant restructuring within WPP, which saw Grey move from the AKQA network to be aligned with Ogilvy, with Grey's global CEO now reporting to Ogilvy's CEO. - Persons has a background in journalism, having written for publications like The New York Times and The Guardian before entering the advertising industry. - Under his leadership, Grey London has recently won new business from clients such as Etihad, Tourism Ireland, and Circle K, winning every pitch it participated in during 2024. - Persons is a proponent of leveraging artificial intelligence as a tool to "massively accelerate human potential," viewing it as a way to create a "better paintbrush" for strategists and creatives. - Prior to his time at Grey, he was a global strategist for WPP, advising major clients like Amazon, Mondelez, and Dell. - He founded a scholarship in the United States to improve access to education for underrepresented groups.
