VP, Paid Search, UK

<div class="content-intro">About WPP Media WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships – all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open – we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth.  WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working. For more information, visit <a href="wppmedia.com">wppmedia.com</a>.</div>3392 - VP, Activation and Delivery, UK  Role Summary and Impact The VP, Paid Search is accountable for leading a high-performing Paid Search team and shaping the strategic direction, delivery excellence, innovation agenda and commercial growth of the channel across a defined client portfolio and the wider MM&D UK business. This VP, Paid Search role will be part of the new Outcomes Activation & Delivery hub, a newly formed team bringing together key clients from across WPP Media focused on delivering measurable business outcome growth for clients. This is a senior leadership role that goes beyond day-to-day channel management. The VP will own Paid Search channel excellence for Outcomes Hub, translating client business challenges into progressive search strategies, and ensuring Paid Search is positioned as a strategic growth lever across performance, customer experience, commerce and broader media transformation. The role requires expert-level Paid Search knowledge, strong commercial judgement, confident client leadership and the ability to build narratives that connect platform innovation, automation, AI, data, measurement and audience behaviour to tangible business outcomes. It also requires a strong understanding of where Paid Search overlaps with Organic Search, Content, Digital PR, AI search environments, and the evolving Total Search proposition. The successful candidate will lead and nurture a thriving search community that is head and shoulders above the competition, consistently meeting the needs of clients while proactively identifying opportunities to surprise, delight and improve outcomes. They will ensure the team has access to the latest tools, training, resources and innovation opportunities, and will play an active role in shaping agency leadership, MM&D UK delivery initiatives, narratives and workstreams. Key Responsibilities Leadership, talent and community •    Lead, motivate and develop a high-performing Paid Search team, creating a culture of accountability, curiosity, high standards and continuous improvement. •    Line manage Directors and/or Associate Directors, ensuring every team member has clear objectives, regular performance conversations and meaningful development plans. •    Identify talent gaps across the Paid Search team and work with HR and leadership to recruit, retain and grow talent aligned to the agency's values, client needs and future capability requirements. •    Provide coaching, mentorship and professional development opportunities, helping teams build both technical depth and broader strategic confidence. •    Evangelise best-in-class Paid Search delivery across the team, ensuring people understand what excellent work looks like and feel enabled to deliver it consistently. •    Ensure the Paid Search team is equipped with the knowledge, skills and commercial understanding required to operate within a Total Search environment, including traditional SEO, Generative Search Optimisation (GSO), Commerce Search and Social Search, fostering greater collaboration, integration and client impact across disciplines. •    Manage department resource levels effectively, balancing client demand, team wellbeing, delivery quality, profitability and growth opportunities. •    Develop the global hub relationship, actively improving the range, complexity and quality of tasks the hub can support, while increasing utilisation and embedding clear ways of working. Develop, evolve and champion our market-leading Paid Search proposition •    Define and own the strategic vision for Paid Search across the relevant client portfolio and team, ensuring our approach remains industry-leading, commercially differentiated and aligned to evolving client, consumer and platform behaviours. •    Own channel excellence for the team, setting clear standards for planning, activation, optimisation, governance, testing, measurement, reporting and client-facing recommendations. •    Support the development and execution of the Paid Search proposition and product strategy and roadmap, including new services, frameworks, operating models and best practice approaches that can scale across clients and MM&D UK. •    Champion the use of AI, automation and technology-enabled solutions in a scalable way, developing innovative client-specific solutions that create competitive advantage and unlock new growth opportunities. •    Ensure the team remains at the forefront of innovation across Google, Microsoft, retail media, social search, search marketplaces, emerging search engines and AI-driven search experiences. •    Translate broader client business challenges into Paid Search strategies that address growth, profitability, customer acquisition, demand generation, retention, conversion, market share and customer experience objectives. •    Build proactive growth plans for the client portfolio they are accountable for, identifying opportunities for incremental revenue, scope expansion, product adoption, innovation pilots and strategic transformation. •    Embed a proactive client culture where teams consistently identify opportunities to surprise and delight clients through innovation, improved performance, insight-led thinking, stronger narratives and market-leading recommendations. •    Partner closely with SEO, Content, Digital PR, Analytics, Commerce, Audience and wider media teams to create integrated search solutions that maximise visibility, relevance and performance across the full customer journey. •    Support the evolution of Integrated Search and the broader Total Search approach, connecting Paid Search, Organic Search, content strategy, AI search optimisation and measurement into a more joined-up client proposition. •    Contribute to wider MM&D UK delivery initiatives, narratives and workstreams, ensuring Paid Search thinking is represented in agency-wide transformation, operational improvement, product development and thought leadership activity. •    Work effectively with media partners such as Google, Microsoft and emerging search technologies to deepen capability, secure access to innovation, shape relevant POVs and translate partner developments into client value. •    Bring together the appropriate specialists to ensure the development of appropriate client-specific measurement, attribution and technology solutions that solve paid search challenges and deliver measurable commercial outcomes. •    Cooperate with wider WPP Media teams to elevate search standards, advance the Paid Search practice, shape the search agenda and support delivery of priority initiatives. Client strategy, proactivity and commercial growth •    Act as a senior strategic advisor to client stakeholders, helping them understand how Paid Search can support broader business goals rather than operati