Ogilvy Public Relations: Profile of the Global PR Practice Inside Ogilvy
Ogilvy Public Relations is the global public relations practice of Ogilvy, the creative network founded by David Ogilvy in 1948 and owned by holding company WPP. Ogilvy operates across more than 120 offices in 90+ countries, organized into five business units: Public Relations, Advertising, Experience, Health, and Growth & Innovation.
Ogilvy PR is one of the largest public relations operations in the world, integrated into Ogilvy's broader creative network rather than run as a standalone holding-company brand. The model — PR sitting inside a single, integrated creative network — is the structural bet that has defined Ogilvy's recent strategy.
Leadership
Julianna Richter has led Ogilvy PR globally since 2020, serving as Global CEO of the Public Relations practice.
At the network level, Laurent Ezekiel was named Global CEO of Ogilvy in September 2025, succeeding Devika Bulchandani, who became Chief Operating Officer of WPP. Ezekiel previously led WPP Open X, the bespoke network WPP built in 2021 to handle Coca-Cola's global marketing across more than 200 brands in 195 countries. Under his leadership, WPP Open X built Studio X and helped Coca-Cola secure Brand of the Year at Cannes Lions 2024.
Bulchandani, who had led Ogilvy globally since 2022, oversaw the integration of Grey into Ogilvy in 2025 — a major consolidation move inside WPP. Under her tenure, Ogilvy became the first agency network in history to be named both the Most Creative and Most Effective network in the world for three consecutive years on WARC's Creative 100 and Effective 100 rankings (2023–2025).
Ownership and Structure
Ogilvy is owned by WPP, the London-listed global communications holding company. WPP's new CEO, Cindy Rose, took over on September 1, 2025, succeeding Mark Read after seven years. Rose, a former Microsoft executive who served as COO of global enterprise, has made integration and AI-native delivery central to WPP's strategy. The Ezekiel appointment was among her first major moves.
Ogilvy's public relations capabilities span:
Corporate communications and reputation
Consumer PR and brand campaigns
Public affairs and government relations
Crisis communications
Influencer and creator partnerships
Health and pharmaceutical communications (through Ogilvy Health)
B2B and technology communications
Social and digital media
Clients
Ogilvy PR's global client base spans every major category. The agency has handled communications work for brands including Mastercard, IBM, Unilever, Dove, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, American Express, Ford, and BP, among many others.
Bulchandani's signature client work includes leading Mastercard's long-running Priceless platform and the True Name initiative — a first-of-its-kind feature launched in 2019 that allowed transgender and non-binary people to display their chosen name on their Mastercard.
Recognition
Ogilvy is the most-awarded creative network in the world by recent industry rankings. The network's recent honors include:
Multiple Cannes Lions Grands Prix across categories
Effie Awards for marketing effectiveness
Spikes Asia 2026 Agency of the Year honors in multiple markets
Industry Position
Ogilvy PR sits at the intersection of two major structural shifts: the consolidation of holding-company assets into integrated creative networks, and the migration of buyer research from search engines to AI engines. Both shifts redefine what a PR practice is for.
The traditional PR mandate — earned media, reputation, narrative — now sits alongside a new mandate: shaping how brands appear inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Ogilvy's integration of PR with Advertising, Experience, Health, and Growth & Innovation under one P&L is built on the bet that the channels are converging, not separating.
Whether the holding-company integrated-network model or the independent-agency model wins the AI Communications era is the open question of the next five years.
Everything-PR covers global PR networks and the structural shift to AI Communications.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
