Ex Telstra boss Sol Trujillo joins WPP board
Former Telstra boss Sol Trujillo has joined the board of marketing giant WPP as a non executive director.
The move may have relevance in Australia, where ad agencies are circling the Telstra roster following the shakeup of the telco’s senior marketing team.
Trujillo left Telstra early last year. And although his inner circle also departed, the businessman will be well placed to offer WPP agencies looking for Telstra’s business guidance on the issues the company faces.
None of the ad agencies currently on Telstra’s roster, including DDB, Three Drunk Monkeys, BWM and Droga 5, are WPP agecnies. WPP’s GPY&R was dropped from the Telstra account in 2008.
WPP’s affiliated Australian agencies also include Grey, JWT, The Campaign Palace, Ogilvy & Mather and the Brand Shop.
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That man has a very unforgettable name.
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Clearly they didn’t check references.
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note to self, sell all WPP shares and take a short position!!
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So he will still be able to screw up Australian advertising, but this time from a safe distance
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Did he have a position on the Photon board we weren’t aware of?
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Ahh Tim, you might want to check which agencies work on Telstra
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As if Telstra would deal with an advertising agency that had Sol Trujillo involved!! Pffft
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I think you’ll find Ogilvy & Mather works on the Telstra account.
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God help WPP…… Such a bad mistake on their behalf. He does not listen to what others tell him.
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A match made in heaven (or hell). They both deserve each other.
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He will be well placed to advise on their problems… He created most of them himself.
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It’s a good placement for WPP … it gives them direct access to the mindset of a painful directionless client.
His role on the board is well removed from any creativity. He won’t make their output any worse but could give them insight to win some business.
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good call Adgrunt – he’s left a few messes behind and has run more than one company into the ground before landing on our shores
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Sol has been a long-time punching bag for people who don’t actually understand what he did at Telstra. He inherited a business (from Ziggy) that was very much a government puppet and not focused on making the correct decisions for shareholders. He made some decisions that were unpopular in AdLand, but his master stoke was the 850 mobile network (Next G to you and me). When the federal gov forced him to share broadband cable infrastructure (at a loss!) with it’s competitors, he astutely switched attention, budgets and efforts to mobile broadband which did not have the same regulations…. this is why we have one of the best mobile networks on the plant and what eventually led to the NBN being formed (a much fairer way to get high speed internet to the people). BRILLIANT!
Adam. You should probably educate yourself about the cronyism, brinksmanship and clown management that outlined Sol’s tenure. The 850 is an investment millstone only slightly helped by USO subsidy. There ain’t no ARPU in flies and ‘roos. The NBN was created in this form due to Telstra’s posturing. Telstra will just become a retail operation.
There’s a reason the share value has been in overall decline since Sol joined and has failed to recover.
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