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WPP Group Names Chairwoman for Young & Rubicam
By STUART ELLIOTT
New York Times

A longtime packaged-foods executive without Madison Avenue experience is becoming the first black woman to lead a large division of a big agency company.

Ann Fudge was today named chairwoman and chief executive of Young & Rubicam Inc. in New York, one of the three largest divisions of the WPP Group.

Y.& R. houses agencies like Young & Rubicam Advertising; Wunderman, a specialist in direct marketing; Landor Associates, focused on corporate identity; and the Burson-Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe public relations firms.

She will also be chairwoman and chief executive of Y.& R. Advertising.

Ms. Fudge succeeds in both posts Michael Dolan, who has worked for Y.& R. for seven years and held the top jobs there since 2001. There had been widespread speculation in trade publications that Mr. Dolan might leave soon, but the selection of Ms. Fudge as his successor came as a surprise.

Mr. Dolan said he would remain to help with the transition and then take some time off before deciding what to do next.

Ms. Fudge is often featured on magazine lists of the most powerful women in American business. She had most recently been the president of the beverages, desserts and Post cereal division of Kraft Foods, responsible for brands with an estimated $5 billion in sales like Maxwell House coffee, Jell-O gelatin, Kool-Aid drink mix and Shredded Wheat.

She left that job in late 2001 and since then had concentrated on working with philanthropic and social organizations, speaking engagements and serving on boards of corporations like General Electric, Honeywell International and Marriott International.

Ms. Fudge, who also worked for General Mills, is the most recent in a lengthening list of executives with experience as marketers who are becoming heads of agencies or agency companies.

Such executives can "understand the opportunities and challenges facing clients," which is "a critical part" of what agency leaders must do, Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP in London, said in a telephone interview this afternoon.

In appointing Ms. Fudge, WPP now has women heading two of its three biggest divisions, also a first. Shelly Lazarus is chairwoman and chief executive of the Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide unit of WPP.