(ATR) The head of the world’s biggest communications company has the ear of the IOC.
Martin Sorrell is number 23 in the Around the Rings Golden 25 for 2016. Now in its 20th year, the survey ranks 25 individuals or events expected to have a major influence on the Olympics in the year ahead.
Sorrell, 70, has been chief executive officer of London-based WPP since 1986. Under his leadership the company has grown by acquisition into a massive collection of firms in advertising, public relations and other communication services. Through the years of building this network of companies, Sorrell has acquired the reputation as a savant for the communications industry.
Sorrell spent two hours in a keynote speech to the IOC session last August in Kuala Lumpur about the need of the IOC to embrace new communications venues, such as the Olympic Channel and the Youth Olympic Games.
"You need to evolve to new consumption behaviors in both younger demographics and in fast-growth markets, more online and more mobile," he told the IOC about the need to reach young people.
It was not the first time Sorrell has delivered that message to the IOC. In 2009 at the Olympic Congress held in Copenhagen, he sounded the warning that the times are changing in a talk titled "The Digital Revolution".
He is a big fan of the Olympics, backing the London bid for 2012, traveling to Singapore for the final phase of the campaign in 2005. Some of the WPP companies have Olympic connections, such as PR giant Hill and Knowlton which has done substantial work for the IOC.
2015 ranking: unranked
Written by Ed Hula.
20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.
Recent Articles
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
