Head of Inclusion Partnerships and Industry Engagement

ABOUT WPP

WPP is undergoing its most significant structural transformation in decades. Through Elevate28, we are moving from a holding company model to a single integrated operating company. The EVP WPP is building for the Elevate28 era is anchored on five dimensions – one of which is Inclusion & Belonging. This role ensures WPP shows up in the industry as one company and as a recognised leader in inclusive practice.

Within this transformation, WPP’s Inclusion & Impact (I&I) team is pioneering an innovative, enterprise-wide approach that moves decisively beyond traditional DEI. We treat inclusion as a strategic business enabler—designing and embedding scalable, measurable, and innovative practices directly into our business operations, creative work, client relationships, and workplace culture to shape meaningful behavioral change. This role ensures WPP show up across the creative, marketing, and media ecosystem as one unified company and recognized voice in inclusive practice.

ROLE OVERVIEW

The Head of Inclusion Partnerships & Industry Engagement is an enterprise-wide strategic, advisory, and ambassadorial leader who defines where and how WPP shows up globally for inclusion and impact. This role consolidates historically fragmented decisions into a unified WPP strategy—curating where we invest our brand equity, which strategic partners we ally with, which major industry stages we command, and which recognition benchmarks we pursue.

This is a brand positioning, external engagement, and strategically influential role, centered in inclusion. Operating at the intersection of brand reputation, industry engagement, and modern inclusion, you bring deep agency ecosystem fluency and the presence to build immediate credibility with senior executives, brand marketers, and cultural changemakers. You will establish rigorous investment criteria, steward a dedicated global budget, and serve as an articulate champion for WPP—shaping industry behavior, reinforcing client trust, activating diverse talent pipelines, and earning industry recognition.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Strategic Inclusion Partnership & Investment Strategy (40%)
   Establish a criteria-led, enterprise approach to external alliances and partners.

• Partnership Strategy: Set the global framework for identifying, assessing, and prioritising external inclusion partners, industry bodies, and community organizations – ensuring alignment to the Inclusion & Impact Strategy.
• Sponsorship Governance: Build and lead an enterprise intake and evaluation model for global industry partnerships, transitioning legacy, ad-hoc agency investments into a cohesive, high-impact One WPP investment strategy.
• Investment Allocations: Recommend annual allocations from the dedicated sponsorship budget based on strategic fit, audience, and expected impact. Spend tracking and vendor administration sit with P&C Operations and GBS.
• Partnership Portfolio Leadership: Direct the overall partnership lifecycle – including renewals, tiering, strategic evolution – with guidance from the Inclusion Partnerships & Client Engagement Lead.

Key KPIs & Objectives:

• Establish Partnership & Sponsorship Framework, with tiering, selection criteria, and an intake process for event and sponsorship requests.
• Set an Annual Sponsorship Investment Plan recommended and approved within the allocated budget.
• Consolidate Legacy agency-level commitments into high-yield, unified enterprise partnerships

1. Industry Presence & Engagement (35%)
   Positioning WPP as a global growth partner centered on inclusion

• Event Activation: Lead WPP’s inclusion presence at priority industry moments (e.g., Cannes Lions, Advertising Week, CES, Campaign, Adobe Summit), embedding I&I into mainstage programming, brand roundtables, and other engagements.
• Frontline Ambassador: Serve as a representative, building relationships with partners, clients, and industry leaders across a range of settings and audiences.
• Thought Leadership Curation: Translate progressive organizational practices into compelling public narratives; collaborate with Regional Inclusion Directors and MarComms to prepare, position, and amplify diverse executive voices, ERG leaders, and breakthrough creative talent on international stages.
• Client Co-Creation & Alignment: Partner with client-facing agency leads and the Inclusion Partnerships & Client Engagement Lead to design joint, values-aligned thought leadership platforms and client-partner roundtables that deepen brand relationships.
• Talent Pipeline Integration: Partner with Talent Acquisition to ensure global sponsorships and partnerships alliances actively generate pathways for emerging, diverse creative and strategic talent.

Key KPIs & Objectives:

• Launch comprehensive Global Industry Activation Plan, that includes details on key messaging and objectives
• Co-create diverse WPP Thought Leadership & Speaker Bureau.
• Curate relationships with partners and clients to support business growth and inclusion client opportunities for ongoing engagement.

1. Industry Recognition, Influence & Impact Measurement (25%)
   Earning recognition for WPP’s inclusive practices through industry benchmarks and measurable business impact.

• Global Recognition Strategy: Define and lead the enterprise awards and recognition roadmap, identifying high-credibility global, regional, and industry inclusive benchmarks.
• Integrated Benchmarking Process: Run a shared awards process with Regional Inclusion Directors, GBS team, and the Global Head of Inclusion & Impact.
• Reputational Narrative Engine: Supply partnership, sponsorship, and award proof points to Talent Acquisition and Marketing & Communications to strengthen WPP’s reputation as an inclusive leader.
• Impact Reporting: In partnership with the Enterprise Director, Inclusion, Brand, and Client Impact, own the End-of-Year Partnership Impact & ROI Report, using partner and client data provided by the Inclusion Partnerships & Client Engagement Lead.

Key KPIs & Objectives:

• Unified Global Awards Strategy and submission process in place with Regional Inclusion Directors and GBS.
• End-of-Year Partnership Impact & ROI Report.
• Effectively communicate reach, engagement, and talent outcomes linked to sponsorship and partnership investment.

EXPERIENCE & PROFILE

• Enterprise Strategy Experience: Significant senior leadership experience in communications, marketing, external partnerships, and/or modern inclusion strategy within complex, matrixed global organization.
• Modern Inclusion Mindset: Passionate about evolving inclusion beyond legacy, compliance-driven HR definitions into an innovative, scalable practice that drives competitive advantage, creativity, and systemic change.
• Partnership & Sponsorship: Track record shaping partnership or sponsorship strategy and recommending where budget should go.
• Advertising & Agency Fluency: Familiarity with major cultural and industry moments (e.g., Cannes Lions, Advertising Week, CES), client marketing expectations.
• Confident Ambassador: Natural connector, with experience working across various organizational levels and functions.
• Strategic & Structured: Brings clarity to competing requests, sets criteria, and makes clear recommendations to senior leaders.
• Collaborative Leader: Demonstrates high emotional intelligence and an inclusive, collaborative leadership style; proven track record of mentoring and elevating direct reports while influencing cross-functional peers across multiple geographies.

Who you are:

You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are open-minded: to new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You're extraordinary: We are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

What we'll give you:

Passionate, inspired people – We aim to create a culture in which people can do extraordinary work

Scale and opportunity – We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.

Challenging and stimulating work – Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?