Martin Sorrell could have survived a scandal but not with the share price falling

There’s a whiff of a plot hanging over the WPP chief executive’s resignation and its aftermath

It’s only latterly that the knives have gone in, accusing him of being too old, of being paid too much and taking too many liberties (Reuters)

You build them up, you knock them down.

More and more I find myself admiring of the business leader who gets out while the going is good, quits while they’re ahead, before the rot sets in – and then they only become remembered for the end, and not the beginning and middle.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many of them, not enough who learn from the mistakes of others. Instead of departing gracefully, hubris takes over and they cling on, and on, and then the exit is messy, and in terms of their long, hard-earned reputation, highly destructive.

Odd, really, when you think how much attention they pay to how they’re perceived. All that preening, all that carefully crafted image-making, and for what?

So it is with Sir Martin Sorrell. He was a hero to many for the way he took over a shopping basket manufacturer, WPP, and built it into a global advertising and marketing behemoth, with 400 subsidiary businesses. He still is, except now he’s also the butt of media articles and gossip about an alleged visit to a Mayfair brothel, and the accusation he used company funds to pay a prostitute, which he denies, and the claimed bullying of staff, also denied.

What did for Sorrell was not the allegations, but the backdrop. The share price was falling, and there was a growing sense of a group and its CEO not moving quickly enough with the times, of being out of touch. Even then, Sorrell’s age, 73, was not a major factor. He was determinedly youthful, someone who prided himself in having his ear to the ground, who spotted trends before they occurred.

But while Sorrell was sharp in public, behind the scenes, in terms of corporate strategy, he was not so agile, and results were moving against him. His advanced years did not push him over, however. Neither did his remuneration, which consistently placed him among the highest-earning people in Britain. All that mattered to his investors was WPP’s performance. It’s only latterly that the knives have gone in, accusing him of being too old, of being paid too much and taking too many liberties.

Likewise, the accusations about his private life and management style. They contributed, but they were not the reasons he went. The fact is, if they’d surfaced previously, during his pomp, they would have had minimal impact. In all probability they would not have been aired in public, brushed aside by the board as minor indiscretions, rubbished by him, not allowed to interfere with his quest for expansion and ever greater profits.

Now, though, they’ve been used to justify his going. There are oddities about the way some of this arose. Would two members of staff really report their boss for entering a doorway, behind which was a brothel, in London’s Shepherd Market? For what, for doing something that had no bearing on them or their employer? If the report was made, who was it made to, and what did it say?

These may seem trivial questions, but I’m trying to sketch a scenario, in which an employee reports that he witnessed the chief executive, who entirely dominates the company, frequenting an address used by sex workers. I don’t know about you, but I can think of all the places I’ve worked, and the bosses I’ve reported to, and I would not dream of doing such a thing. The observation might cause some amusement, but to go to the trouble of a report? And what about my job prospects, once it became known I was in the habit of snitching on my senior colleagues? This in an industry not exactly unknown for turning a blind eye to personal excess and abandon.

It does not stack up. As to the claims of abusive behaviour that have since reached the press, why now, why in his 32-year tenure at the top of WPP is this the moment for them to reach the public domain? Are we to believe that Sorrell has only just become a bully, because, if not, why did we not hear about this earlier?

No. There’s a whiff of a plot hanging over Sorrell’s resignation and its aftermath, the smell of either a deliberate conspiracy or of issues being allowed to come together conveniently to hasten him to the door and to justify his leaving.

Whatever the machinations, however, he has gone. For that, Sorrell just has to look at the experiences of former titans who were equally regarded, and also viewed themselves, as impervious, and likewise failed to see what could come.

It’s arrogance, of course it is. What’s baffling is that Sorrell – whose intelligence was much sought after, by clients, staff, corporate chieftains, politicians, journalists, and delegates to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he held annual court, and who would opine on advertising, media, commerce, the economy, society, and even leadership – never foresaw what might happen.

Perhaps it’s unfair to suppose he should have realised what would be thrown at him, and just how nasty it would become. But he should have known the significance of the company’s increasingly lacklustre performance. And for that, Sorrell, who basked in the glory of WPP for decades, only has himself to blame.

Chris Blackhurst is a former editor of The Independent, and executive director of C|T|F Partners, the campaigns and strategic communications advisory firm.