April 23, 2010 (FinancialWire) — Communications services organization WPP (NASDAQ: WPPGY) has named Steve Harding as global CEO of its Ogilvy & Mather unit’s OgilvyAction division. Harding, a British national based in London, has been part of a five person management collective which has run the business over the past seven months.

Harding joined Ogilvy & Mather in May 2005 when he merged his activation company Tarantula with Ogilvy & Mather's 141 Worldwide, becoming the CEO of the merged operations.  In 2007, when 141 was relaunched as OgilvyAction, he was named CEO, OgilvyAction EAME.

At the end of 2009 when the OgilvyAction Global Leadership Team was established, Harding became an inaugural member.

Harding started his career at Smith and Nephew, followed by Carlsberg Tetley both in sales and marketing roles.  He then took the decision to move to the agency side in the early 1990's joining a sales promotion start up called USP, which he was a shareholder of before it was sold to a UK PLC.   OgilvyAction is the global brand activation network of The Ogilvy Group. The firm has 69 offices employing 1,700 people, and offers range of disciplines including experiential, shopper, trade, and promotional marketing. Supporting each of these is a capability in field marketing, digital activation, retail design and analytics.

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