A Most Interesting Man – Part 1

20:28Sir Martin Sorrell:I like soccer.

20:30Shelley:Well, I was calling it football for you.

20:32Sir Martin Sorrell:Yeah, I like American football, actually. Oh, good. Me too. I like baseball. I like all sports, actually, to be fair. I mean, you know, I was at the Olympics for the Winter Olympics in Milan. Were you? Which was super good. Yeah, they did a really good job. I mean, sport is interesting because at the moment, the franchises that are on the up are FIFA and F1. Right. And what's interesting about the Milano-Cortina Games is I think the Olympic movement is on the back foot. They've lost a number of major sponsors like Toyota, Intel, Bridgestone and Panasonic. Whereas FIFA, you've got this huge programme here.

21:17Sir Martin Sorrell:It started with the Club World Championship last year, the World Cup this year. We're doing the film around the World Cup with FIFA. and then next year you'll have the Women's World Cup in Brazil and then the year after you'll have women's football and men's football under 23, I think it is, at the Olympics. And then you'll have the women's club world championship, I think, that year as well. So there's a huge number of soccer programs. So soccer is building.

21:50Shelley:And you're right about F1, people are going bananas.

21:52Sir Martin Sorrell:F1, yeah. I was on the board of F1 for nine years. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. When it was owned by CBC. It was one of CBC's most successful investments, and they sold it to Liberty for about, I think it was about$4.5 billion. It's now worth much more than that. Oh, my God. And, of course, Liberty had done a great job with it, primarily, and it's an interesting marketing case, because they managed to get, which Bernie Eccleston didn't manage to do, they managed to get distribution here in these states. So you now have a series of races here in the states. Remember, Bernie Eccleston was very keen to do one in New Jersey.

22:30Sir Martin Sorrell:He tried to get that done, but you now have Miami. So it's become Las Vegas. It's become a real sport. And the engine for that was when Sean Bratches managed to get Netflix to do the series on F1 on Netflix. And it built a consumer base here in the US, not just of men, but of women too. So it's a good example of that. So F1 is on the up. I would say FIFA's on the up. I see a bit on the back foot a new president, Kirsty Coventry. It's going to be interesting. Obviously, I think Milan, Cortina, plus Paris, because we had a great summer Olympics in Paris. Right. And the prospect of LA 28 is super good.

23:24Shelley:Very good.

23:24Sir Martin Sorrell:So I think, you know, the Olympics has a real chance to reestablish itself, which it needs to do. And the games, from a TV, you may watch it, it's super good, you know, using drones, using drones for photography. so we actually have a team we have a team of monks with the OBS in Milan and Cortina for it and you're working with Netflix we do Netflix stuff as well so there's some really interesting things happening in sports and sports sponsorship obviously franchises here in the US it could be basketball it could be the NFL It can be baseball. I mean, it's incredible.

24:13Shelley:Well, maybe I could introduce you to Sam, which is an awesome name. So then after McCormick, then what happens? Well, I want... That's when you started WP. Well, I wanted to... Oh, no, you did Saatchi and Saatchi.

24:28Sir Martin Sorrell:I wanted to go... No, I wanted to go into business with my dad. So I had a very, very close relationship with my father. I mean, I'm not exaggerating. I would speak... This is before mobile phones. I would talk to my dad in the course of a day. I'm not exaggerating. I would say six or seven times a day. That's wonderful. Yeah. And I was an only child. Yeah. I had a brother who died a year before I was born. My parents never talked about it. I think for understandable reasons they didn't. My mother used to, my father used to describe it as a dry birth. I'm not quite sure what a dry birth was. but I had a brother who was born.

25:13Sir Martin Sorrell:His name was Michael and he died a year and a week before I was born. So I was the last chance saloon. So I was spoiled. I mean, Jewish kids are spoiled anyway but I was spoiled big time. And so I really wanted... I had a very close relationship with my father and I really wanted to work with him. So I said to McCormack, I said to my father, you know, how do I do this?

25:46Shelley:And my father said, it's very funny, he said, why don't you write to Mark saying you really enjoy what you're doing

25:53Sir Martin Sorrell:but you want to take a temporary leave of absence to explore some other opportunities? So I wrote to Mark and Mark said, well, regrettable, but OK, go ahead and do that. And I went off. Now, years later, when, you know, jumping ahead, when I started WPP and everything, our first big deal was the hostile, so-called hostile takeover of J. Walter Thompson. Right. Which was 13 times our size. And, you know, in front-page news in the London papers, the American papers, the North Times, Washington, and the... So Mark had this habit of going through his correspondence on the next year on the same day.

26:40Sir Martin Sorrell:So he would look back a year.

26:42Shelley:Oh, that's really interesting. He found the letter, again, which I'd written him,

26:48Sir Martin Sorrell:I wrote to him in 1970, what were you doing, about 1971, 72, and we did the hostile takeover of JWT in 87, a long time ago. But every year he looked at his story. he wrote to me and he said are you still on a temporary leave of absence? So anyway I wanted to do something with my dad so I left McCormack and we started a business together but it was a complete and utter disaster Oh working together or the business itself? No no no it wasn't the business the business was okay but we just could not get on I mean really interesting

27:32Shelley:It's so, I'm so close with my father too, and at this point I think that ship will have passed for us as far as working together. But I wonder how it would, I mean, I'll never know, but what do you think was the reason? Matt, you saw the pepper too, please.

27:50Sir Martin Sorrell:I think we both had firm points of view, so, you know, that's what, yeah. So I would say we just, it was, we were too... Similar? Maybe. But, you know, I would talk to him about everything. And I think it's a really important thing that you should have somebody that you can talk to, you know, if you're in a business, obviously outside the business, who has your interests at heart. Right. Has your, obviously, at one level, it's advice, which is helpful, obviously. But at another level, somebody to assess what the hell is going on. Right. and give you advice as to what you should or shouldn't do.

28:34Sir Martin Sorrell:And I would talk to him about everything. Now, he was a retailer, but he knew everything about... I mean, it was amazing. He left school at 13, was a Talmudic scholar and a Shakespearean scholar. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah. When I say Shakespearean scholar, when Simon Shaman and I used to do every year, we used to go in for the English-speaking uni... At school, Haberdash's. we used to go to the competition called the English Speaking Union Competition and part of that was you read a piece of prose they gave you but you also had to have a prepared speech which you learnt. So my father and I, every year I did it four years in a row.

29:16Sir Martin Sorrell:My father would tutor me on a speech from Shakespeare. Henry V, Richard III, Midsummer Night's Dream, as you like it, whatever it was. And I have a decent memory but I would always fluff it I would always make one thing my father would never to his dying day this is a guy who left school at 13 my mother left school at 13 as well educated in the east end of London because you were a member of the income producing thing and you went out and you earned a living and incredible so you know before the internet obviously and you went to school let's say half the day, two-thirds of the day, you came home.

30:00Sir Martin Sorrell:And went to work. And you studied Talmud, you studied Shakespeare, but when you were 13, when you could leave school, you went out and worked.

30:09Shelley:Yeah.

30:10Sir Martin Sorrell:So, you know, look, my father was incredible, but we just didn't see eye to eye, and I would speak to him, but subsequent to that, I would speak to him literally every day, and he was a retailer, and he understood about human beings.

30:25Shelley:That's what I was thinking. I'm sure he was able to call out bad actors in your world.

30:31Sir Martin Sorrell:Well, there was one instance where when I was working, after I left what my father and I were doing, I went to work for this guy, James Gulliver. And that's how I got in the advertising business. One of the investments that James had made, he sold his business to RCA Corporation. He had a food retailing and wholesaling business. Oh, yeah. For some reason, RCA bought it. James made a lot of money, and he invested the money in a number of ventures, a number of companies, and one of them was Sarches, and that's how I got into it. But getting into that, James Gulliver said to me, you know, he's going to leave RCA after he's sold the business.

31:15Sir Martin Sorrell:I was going to start James Gulliver Associates. and James said his shareholder is going to be 70 % and Alistair Grant, who was one of his associates, was going to have 12. David Webster was going to have 10 and I was going to have 8. And I was pissed off. Right. That I was at 8. So what did your father say? So my father said, you should go and speak to James. and I won't say exactly what advice he gave, but he said you should use a word. It was one of the three people objected to me having more than eight. And he said you should go to the person who's objecting and use a word. It wasn't a cuss word or anything like that.

32:05Sir Martin Sorrell:It was a perfectly normal word. But what he did was, and my father said to me, If you use that word, you drop it into the conversation, the guy will fault. So I went, had this meeting with this guy. What's the word? The word was bigot.

32:21Shelley:Okay.

32:22Sir Martin Sorrell:It was bigot. It was really interesting.

32:25Shelley:And? He was right. In the second, problem solved. Wow. Oh, that's a great story. So should we gloss over Saatchi and Saatchi? No. You were referred to, I guess, as the third brother there. Was it difficult to work for...

32:45Sir Martin Sorrell:There were 25 people who were the third brother. Oh, really? No, Morris and Charles. Or if I say Charles and Morris.

32:57Sir Martin Sorrell:Charles left school when he was 16. Probably, not probably, was a creative genius, or is a creative genius. he got his love of art I think I can't remember the name of his first wife I think it was Doris was a woman, an American woman who had a great love of art or a great eye and I think Charles really became interested in art not primarily but partially because of Doris and of course he was he would go to art exhibitions and buy 25 Damien Hirsts some for the company and some for his portfolio Charles and Morris Charles was the creative genius Morris was the business guy the suit Morris was first class almost from LSE from the School of Economics very bright, very clever so a good combination and Tim Bell, who was Margaret Thatcher's sort of communications guy.

34:10Sir Martin Sorrell:Oh, wow. With Gordon Reese. So Margaret Thatcher had two people. Gordon Reese, who was an ex-television producer. So, I mean, Peter Mandelson is not flavor of the month anymore, but, you know, sort of Mandelson was equivalent to Gordon Reese for Tony Blair. Right. So Charles and Morris, and then you had Tim, and then there was a guy called Bill Muirhead who was a very good account guy. Jeremy Sinclair, a very good creative guy. So these are all people who could say we are a brother, a brother or a third brother. I think Tim was really, Tim was an outstanding account man. They used to say dogs would cross the road to be...

34:58Shelley:To talk to him? Oh, that's hilarious. or be with him. Well, then why did you leave? Did you think you were going to stay or you wanted to do your own thing?

35:06Sir Martin Sorrell:No, well, my dad's advice was find an industry you like. Find a company in that industry that you like. Build a reputation. Not a reputation to have a podcast with Shelley at Cafe Milano, but build a reputation. And then if you fancy doing something on your own, and he used to think of life being from 20 to 60, right? So in those days, now we think about it a bit more time, but 40 was the midpoint. And he said, you know, if at the age of 40 or thereabouts, you want to go off and do something on your own, have a go. So I followed his advice. You were 40? Yeah, I was exactly 40.

35:54Shelley:Were you married and had kids at the time? I borrowed money, not a lot, I didn't have a lot of money,

36:03Sir Martin Sorrell:but I borrowed money against my shareholding and such's and bought into this, what we call a shell company, which was valued at£1 million. We had some... There was an English stockbroker who I knew called Preston Ravel. So it was a bit difficult for me because I was finance director of a public company, which was Sarches. And, you know, this was a personal thing. So together with Preston, we did a very amusing story. It shows you what life is like. So we did a screening because I had a limited amount of money. and we wanted to find a shell company, which was a listed company on the London Stock Exchange, we could use as a base for acquisitions.

36:57In those days, Jim Hansen, Jimmy Goldsmith, Jim Slater,

37:05Sir Martin Sorrell:these were all famous financiers who built large businesses through acquisition using leverage and highly priced stock to build businesses.

37:20Shelley:And I just want to pause you for a second. What is your focus, or why have you always been focusing on acquisitions? Is it for growth? Obviously. When you start a business, and you want to build a big business,

37:39Sir Martin Sorrell:that's the way to do it? It's very difficult to do it organically. Correct. Now it's not so difficult because, you know, with things like the Internet, smartphones, AI, blockchain, etc., the growth rates are compounding faster. But basically, if you wanted to build a business of scale, and the problem with Harvard Business School is, you know, every case study that you have, you'll see some major global companies and you tend to think about that. Anyway, so we did a screening. So we had to be a manufacturing business because they were cheap. No debt. Freehold property, if possible. And I remember management that was mature but not senile because we didn't want to run a manufacturing business.

38:36Sir Martin Sorrell:Anyway, the wire and plastic products was run by a guy called, what was his name? Come back to me. Anyway, we went and saw the owner, and it was the Dartford Wireworks, sort of southeast London.

38:58Sir Martin Sorrell:and Preston Rabel, who was a posh stockbroker and I go down Dartford High Street and Gordon Sampson his name was have fixed the appointment for 2pm so no lunch this was Gordon's way of sending a message no lunch and we were starving. We walked down there and we see this fish and chip shop and I say to Preston, I'm starving, let's have some chips. So I had chips and we sprinkled liberally salt and vinegar over the chips. So we end up at Dartford Wildworks for lunch, for a meeting with Gordon at 2pm smelling of vinegar. To his dying day, Gordon thought that we'd done it deliberately to prove we were men of the people.

39:51Shelley:Oh, that's so funny. But you were.

39:54Sir Martin Sorrell:So we go to see Gordon, and we have our conversation with Gordon. And this is how luck plays an important part. The advisors to wire and plastic products were a bank called County Bank and a stockbroker called Pamir Gordon, which still exists. County Bank doesn't still exist. And County Bank and Pamir Gordon, Pamir Gordon were the closest advisor to James Gulliver. Oh, wow. So Gordon sees us, and he rings up County Bank, who were also advisors to Sarches, right? And he speaks to one of the bankers at County Bank and said, I've just seen this guy, Sorrel and Durable. What do you think of them? And the guy at County Bank said, very difficult question for me to answer.

40:51Sir Martin Sorrell:conflict of interest. Right. So let me think about it overnight. The following morning, the banker rings Gordon and says, let me, I can't comment, but let me tell you a story. And there was another shell operation, we call them shell operations, which had been done by a guy called Greg Hoskins, something like that. And so the county banker says, Greg bought into this company, so similar operations Preston and I was going to do, at 10p. And the day that it was announced, the transaction, the stock went to 40p and said, that's all I can say and put the phone down. That's awesome. That's a great story.

41:45Sir Martin Sorrell:It's interesting. My father used to say, you make your own luck. But where he was right, I mean, one of the pieces of advice was, you know, if you spread your network, what is it, nine degrees of separation? Right, right, right.

42:01Shelley:Same thing. My father always says, the harder you work, the luckier you get. I think our fathers would like each other. So when WPP becomes the largest ad. Yeah, but my mother was a hauling Jewish grandmother. She must have been so thrilled. I mean, did she tell everybody?

42:23Sir Martin Sorrell:Yes.

42:24Shelley:And she was alive to see it. That's so wonderful.

42:26Sir Martin Sorrell:She survived my father, but she was impossible. She used to work in a... She was on reception at Jewish Care in North West London. So Jewish Care still exists. It's quite a thriving... It's a centre for older people to come during the day. Day centre. It was then, when she was alive, probably still is today, the biggest day center for Jewish people. Old Jewish people. In Europe. In Europe? Yeah. My goodness. So my mother used to serve on reception. Right. So every day, they would bus in all these Jewish men and women. Right. And you can imagine. She would tell everybody what you were up to? She was impossible.

43:11Sir Martin Sorrell:Every day. Did you have to go to visit? No, I'm still involved with Jewish Care. I mean, it's one of the charities I try and do a lot. I'm on the Bloomberg. One of the things you didn't mention, I'm on the trustee of the Bloomberg Philanthropies. And Michael is really generous. His foundation is superb. And, you know, when you're a trustee, the matching donations, and I give to the Jewish Care every year.

43:35Shelley:But, you know, I'm glad that you're bringing this up because in the end, obviously, you leave WPP and you start S4 which I guess is Sorrel 4

43:47Sir Martin Sorrell:it's four generations of Sorrel it was meant to be my grandparents so on my father's side

44:01Sir Martin Sorrell:his parents came we think from Lvov it was either Lvov or Keov in Ukraine in 1899 When my mother died, I found their wedding certificate. It was dated 1899, UK. Signed with crosses for my grandpa and my grandma, my bubba and my zayda, as we call them. And then the four witnesses also signed with crosses. So they must have come across from Ukraine.

44:32Shelley:And did it have a signature?

44:34Sir Martin Sorrell:Just crosses. Okay. Couldn't speak a word of English. Right, right. My Zader, who was, I would describe as lazy, my grandmother was the lioness, right? Or the lion, actually. And she was a balabusta, as they say. I know all of these words. Yeah, she was super good. And I think my grandfather was a little bit lazy. And I can remember he had a mustache, a white mustache, and snuff. He used to take snuff, and the snuff would dribble down his style, all down his front, you know. Yeah. He was schlubby. The three-piece suit with a tie. Oh, OK. Always. Not terribly schlubby. So that was on my father's side.

45:18Sir Martin Sorrell:And my grandfather used to tell the story, we never believed him, that when he was ten years old, he was in the ghetto, presumably in Lvov or Kiev, and he put his hand on the top of a barricade, and a Cossack put his hand on the top of the barricade. He was on the other side of the barricade. He took a sword and he claimed to have chopped off the Cossack's hand when he was 10 years old. We never could check the story out, obviously. Is that why they left? No, well, they left because of the pogroms.

45:51Shelley:But also, he must have been in terrible trouble after that.

45:54Sir Martin Sorrell:I think he got away with it, but it was. We never believed it, but in light of recent events, it's not something that you would gainsay. So that was on my father's side. On my mother's side, my mother's father came from Poland, from Warsaw, and my mother from Romania, from Bucharest. So my father used to call my mother a Romanian gypsy. So it's all central and eastern Europe. and they lived in the east end of London. And as I said before, they left school. They both met at school. They met at a school called Mylen Central.

46:36Shelley:Prior to being 13.

46:38Sir Martin Sorrell:Yes, they met when they were at school. They both left school at 13. Yeah. My mother worked as a secretary. My father went as a... My father originally was what we call a barrack room lawyer. He wasn't trained as a lawyer, but he went into court, apparently, when he was about 16, to defend rather shady Jewish businessmen who got themselves into trouble. And he grew a moustache to look older.

47:11Shelley:Oh, funny.

47:11Sir Martin Sorrell:Yeah, you see the pictures, yeah. I would love to see the pictures. I'd love to see a picture of your parents. There's somewhere, there's a picture of them.

47:19Shelley:Not electronically? Like you don't have them on your phone?

47:23Sir Martin Sorrell:No, no, they're stylized. They were all done by, what was the name of the photographer? Baron, was it? You know, those stylized pictures, always the... They're very severe. The bride is in a long white dress with a headdress and a veil, obviously. And the groom is in a white tie and tails.

47:44Shelley:But they didn't smile.

47:46Sir Martin Sorrell:They weren't smiling in those pictures.

47:48Shelley:Yeah, I think in those days there's something strange about, I don't know, it wasn't cool to smile or something. So then you start S4. Yeah, S4, I was going to say, is meant to be four generations.

48:04Sir Martin Sorrell:You take my grandparents. Right. My parents. Right. Me, my kids. We should really call it S5 because I have grandkids now.

48:13Shelley:So you start S4 and then you buy... Media monks. Media monks.

48:18Sir Martin Sorrell:Well, we bought two businesses. We bought a lot of businesses, but the two big ones were Media Monks in content and Mighty Hive in data and digital media. And the two together, those were the two biggest. Then we added 16 businesses to one and 16 businesses to the other. We didn't integrate them as well as we should have done, which is Mayor Culber. but I mean essentially we built a digital content, data and digital media and transformation business. So we have three business lines, one around content, so creating digital advertising, one around data analysis and digital media. We buy about$6 billion of media, so it's not as big as WPP.

49:12Sir Martin Sorrell:WPP, there would be about 60 billion. But it's all digital. And then the third area is digital transformation. So we work with clients on changing their structure and building digital capabilities, which is too slow at the minute. Companies are too slow to adopt. The only verticals, I was talking about that this morning, actually, with several clients. The only verticals where we've seen significant AI adoption at scale is autos, because Chinese EVs are threatening to knock them out of the park. And then the second area is financial services, where fintech platforms like NewBank, who we work with in Brazil and Mexico, are threatening to change branch banking.

50:05Sir Martin Sorrell:So where you get an outside economic force, which is driving change, you get adoption you know turkeys don't vote for Christmas and people don't move until they have to move I mean it's a big mistake they should be doing it now so AI adoption consumers are adopting AI far faster than we use you know you often find inside companies the legal department says you can't use AI whereas we as consumers are using it all the time I mean it's a phenomenal advantage to use AI at scale. And just think about the preparation for this, for example. You can go on Gemini or chat GPD, whatever, and key in whatever questions you like.

50:51Sir Martin Sorrell:You can interrogate the LLM, and you get incredible information at speed. In the old days, if I was going to have a conversation with a client, I'd have somebody do some research. It should take up a day, two days. Exactly, and then you have papers, papers. It had to be typed up. Right, right, right. It was a nightmare. Right. A nightmare. I mean, if you just think about it, when I was starting with James Gulliver, we used to stop on the motorway with pennies that we used to put into a coin box and press button A and button B to talk to somebody. We didn't remember that.

51:26Shelley:Right, of course.

51:26Sir Martin Sorrell:So I'm old enough to remember that, for God's sake.

51:28Shelley:You know, I was thinking the other day, my father and I always loved to find change on the street. because if you found change, it was a lucky thing. And I used to joke that we would both be run over someday because we were picking up a dime somewhere. But lately I haven't found any change on the street because there's no coins anymore. You find a hundred dollar bill. Oh, wouldn't that be marvelous? All right, that does it for part one of Shelley's Lunch with Sir Martin Sorrell. Part two is coming up next. Be sure to check out all things Lunch with Shelly at lunchwithshelly.com. Hey, I'm Claude, and as Shelly always says, peace, love, and lunch.