Judi Bevan

The veteran batsman who just hates to lose

Judi Bevan meets Sir Martin Sorrell, the hard-driving Eighties entrepreneur who is still chasing acquisitions for the company he created, the advertising giant WPP ‘Building a company is the nearest thing a man can do to giving birth and nurturing a child to maturity,’ says Sir Martin Sorrell, the founder and chief executive of WPP.

issue 28 June 2008

Judi Bevan meets Sir Martin Sorrell, the hard-driving Eighties entrepreneur who is still chasing acquisitions for the company he created, the advertising giant WPP

‘Building a company is the nearest thing a man can do to giving birth and nurturing a child to maturity,’ says Sir Martin Sorrell, the founder and chief executive of WPP.

Judi Bevan meets Sir Martin Sorrell, the hard-driving Eighties entrepreneur who is still chasing acquisitions for the company he created, the advertising giant WPP

‘Building a company is the nearest thing a man can do to giving birth and nurturing a child to maturity,’ says Sir Martin Sorrell, the founder and chief executive of WPP. ‘Nobody has a bigger emotional connection with this business than I do.’

That statement gives a clue to why, of all the Thatcher babes who made their names in the 1980s, Sorrell is the only one still to be running the same stockmarket-listed company with which he started.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in