• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, July 17, 2017

Well it looks like not everyone was thrilled with the recent announcement that WPP is merging its Wunderman and Possible operations.

Possible CEO Shane Atchison, along with US President Jason Burby, will be leaving the organization at year’s end.

In hindsight, which is perfect, of course, the departures aren’t that surprising.

WPP confirmed at the time the merger was announced that Atchison would subsequently report to Wunderman CEO Mark Read. Which itself is no great surprise, given that Wunderman is the much bigger company with revenues estimated at more than $1 billion. Possible rakes in an estimated $250 million.

That said, Atchison, at heart, is an entrepreneur. And entrepreneurs are creators that like to call the shots, not report to others.

He cofounded search marketing and digital analytics firm ZAAZ nearly 20 years ago. Ironically, it was WPP’s Wunderman that acquired ZAAZ back in 2006. Six years later, the holding merged ZAAZ with its existing POSSIBLE operation and put Atchison in charge as Global CEO of the latter.

Burby has been a protégé of Atchison’s since around the turn of the century, helping him build both ZAAZ and POSSIBLE. So it’s not a shock that he’s joining Atchison in a new adventure to be announced shortly.

Adweek reports that Atchison’s role won’t be filled, but that POSSIBLE (and ZAAZ) veteran Martha Hiefield has been promoted to North America CEO of POSSIBLE, which for now, according to WPP, will remain a standalone brand.

But who knows how long that will last?

Change happens quickly at WPP. On May 18, the holding company’s media division GroupM announced that Lindsay Pattison, then CEO of Maxus, would take on the additional responsibility of managing change throughout the organization as chief transformation officer, while retaining her Maxus duties. Fifteen days later, the holding merged Maxus into MEC, putting MEC CEO Tim Castree in charge of the merged entity. 

As the brilliant Nationwide campaign from a decade ago put it: “Life Comes At You Fast.” 

Especially in this business!