WPP launches Health & Wellness

Mike Hudnall has been appointed global CEO based in New York. He has been global client leader at WPP for the past five years and prior to that was co-founder and chief strategic officer of health and wellness agency, Evoke Health.

This new healthcare specialist unit will encompass Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide, Sudler & Hennessey, ghg | greyhealth group and CMI/Compas although they will continue to operate under their current brands.

In the Americas, the agencies will continue to be led by their current leadership but to service the rest of the world, WPP is creating a new international healthcare specialist unit with hubs in Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand.

Claire Gillis, previously CEO of ghg | greyhealth group Europe, has been appointed as international CEO, healthcare specialist agencies.

WPP Health & Wellness will work with group companies such as Kantar, GroupM and Wunderman to create data and analytics capabilities in health – giving clients more sophisticated segmentation and targeting, the ability to use data to deliver more valuable information to change behaviour, and better health outcomes.

Hudnall said: “Individually our healthcare agencies are well known and respected for their strong partnership and meaningful work they deliver for our clients. This new structure centres on keeping those brands and cultures alive, builds on those strengths, and enables new cross-agency collaboration that will benefit our clients and provide greater career opportunities for our people. We are focused on sharing best practices, scaling our strengths, and developing new services.”

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, said: “Health and wellness is one of the most exciting sectors of the global economy and offers enormous opportunities for our businesses. WPP Health & Wellness will build on the excellent work we are already doing in this space and take us into new areas with a much more comprehensive offer.”