The veteran batsman who just hates to lose
28 June 2008
Judi Bevan meets Sir Martin Sorrell, the hard-driving Eighties entrepreneur who is still chasing acquisitions for the company he created, the advertising giant WPP
‘Building a company is the nearest thing a man can do to giving birth and nurturing a child to maturity,’ says Sir Martin Sorrell, the founder and chief executive of WPP.
Technology he finds more challenging than geography. ‘It’s difficult to work out where the next shift is coming from. It’s not just Google, but son or daughter of Google.’ What he does know is that one-country, one-medium companies such as ITV are extremely vulnerable. ‘That is what Rupert Murdoch and Bob Eiger [the head of Disney] understand.’
At 63, it is likely Sorrell has another decade of working life in him; whether or not he wins Taylor Nelson Sofres, it is unlikely to be his last acquisition. As anyone who has ever seen Sorrell bowled out at cricket knows, he hates to lose. Luckily, he has a sense of humour. ‘You know what happens at WPP is not a matter of life and death to me,’ he says, parodying Liverpool FC’s former manager Bill Shankly. ‘It’s far more important than that.’
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