Title Global Chairman Company GroupM Bio Irwin Gotlieb is the Global Chairman of GroupM, the world’s leading, full service mediainvestment management company. GroupM is the parent organization to WPP media agencies including Maxus, MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare. The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application of scale in innovation, services and trading for the benefit of clients and GroupM companies. Irwin’s tenure at WPP began in September 1999 when he joined the company as Chairman and CEO of Mindshare Worldwide. He launched Mindshare North America by consolidating the media resources of JWT and Ogilvy, thus creating a global entity. In April 2003 WPP established GroupM and Irwin moved into the role of CEO of GroupM Worldwide. Prior to WPP he was President and CEO of MediaVest Worldwide, a company he founded in December 1993 that included the former TeleVest and MediaVest units, along with the unbundled media resources of D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles. The founding of MediaVest represented the fulfillment of a 22-year journey with the company which started when he joined Benton & Bowles in 1977 as Associate Director of Broadcast Programming. He was Vice President two months later. In 1981 he was promoted to Manager of National Broadcast and in 1983 he was appointed Senior Vice President, Director of National Broadcast & Programming. In April 1990 he became Senior Vice President Worldwide Director of Broadcast & Programming. He betgan his career in 1972 when he joined SSC&B, Inc., as Manager of Network Relations, becoming Vice President, Director of Network Operations before moving to Benton & Bowles. In 2007, Irwin was named one of the media industry’s top 25 most influential leaders by TV Week magazine, an honor that came only a few months after he was inducted into Broadcasting & Cable magazine’s Hall of Fame. In 2006, New York magazine published “The Influentials,” essentially a roll call of the city’s leading executives in a wide array of industries; Irwin’s name was at the top of the list in the “Advertising” category.” Among his many achievements, Irwin is a three time Adweek/Mediaweek All Star, including a President’s Award in 1997. He is also a double Advertising Age Media Maven honoree, and in February 2000 was named as the Media Player of the Year by Advertising Age – the only occasion that this award has been given. He appears regularly on industry panels and makes presentations to both national and international conferences covering the advertising, marketing, and media industries.