Sir Martin Stuart Sorrell (born 14 February 1945) is a British businessman and the founder of WPP plc, the world's largest advertising and PR group, both by revenue and the number of staff.

Martin Stuart Sorrell was born in London on 14 February 1945 to a Jewish family: his father was an electronics retailer,[5][6] whose ancestors came from Ukraine, Poland and Romania.

[7] He was educated at the independent Haberdashers' Boys' School, then studied economics at Christ's College, Cambridge,[8] and gained an MBA from Harvard University in 1968.

[5][9][10] Sorrell joined Glendinning Associates, then James Gulliver and then worked for the sports agent Mark McCormack.

[1] He began to acquire "below-the-line" advertising-related companies, purchasing 18 in three years, including in 1987 when he stunned the agency world with a $566 million hostile takeover of J. Walter Thompson.

A report by the Financial Times[15] found out that Imago was employed by Robert Mugabe's campaign for reelection to the presidency of Zimbabwe.

[18] In August 2017, Sorrel said that "digital disruption" was forcing companies to change their business models and reach customers in different ways when shares in WPP fell by more than 10% at the start of trading after the advertising giant reported slowing sales and warned about future growth.

[19] In September 2017, Sorrell criticised the marketing industry, arguing it is "too competitive" and that agencies value winning contracts, whether they are profitable or not, over content since making the headlines in a trade magazine is more important.

[23] In October 2011 Sorrell went on the BBC to defend large increases in his and other CEO pay packages[24] at a time when real average wages in the Western world were declining.

[39] The Financial Times in an investigation around the circumstances of his departure from WPP has commented that what “emerged is a picture of routine verbal abuse of underlings and a blending of Sir Martin’s corporate and private life that jarred with some colleagues — particularly over his company expenditure, some of which was also extended to his wife”.

He is chairman of the Global Advisory Board of the Centre for International Business and Management (CIBAM), at the University of Cambridge, UK.

In October 2005, he cashed in £12 million of WPP shares to fund the divorce settlement,[50] in which Ms. Finestone, represented by Nicholas Mostyn QC, was awarded £30 million including: a £3.25m four-storey Georgian townhouse; two Harrods underground car parking spaces worth around £90,000 each; £23.5m in cash; £2m in bank deposits; and other assets including stocks and shares.

[51] In the Lambert judgement, Lord Justice Thorpe stated that "special contribution remains a legitimate possibility but only in exceptional circumstances"; Sorrell was the first husband deemed to have met that criterion in a subsequent divorce settlement, with Mr Justice Bennett citing Sorrell's "special contribution" to the family's wealth in justification.