Mumbai: WPP Media has appointed David Gaines as President, Global Head of Planning, marking a significant addition to the global media network’s leadership team.
Gaines joins WPP Media following his tenure as CEO and Founder of Media by Mother, a startup he built with the aim of reimagining media and creative solutions for the digital age. With over 25 years of experience spanning media, digital, and strategy across global markets, he brings a breadth of senior leadership experience to the role.
Prior to founding Media by Mother, Gaines held senior positions at a number of leading media and advertising agencies, including WPP, Wavemaker, and Maxus, where he led the evolution and redesign of media and creative development across globally integrated accounts. He also previously served as Global Head of Media Strategy at WPP.
In his new role, Gaines will focus on designing and scaling a modern approach to planning across WPP Media’s global operations. The appointment comes at a moment of rapid change across the media and advertising landscape, with artificial intelligence, platform shifts, data, creativity, and culture increasingly reshaping how brands grow and communicate.
Announcing the move on LinkedIn, Gaines described the role as an opportunity to apply lessons learned building Media by Mother at global scale, and expressed enthusiasm for helping shape the industry’s next chapter within a business he described as operating at the forefront of that transformation.
The appointment reinforces WPP Media’s focus on modernising its planning capabilities as the broader media industry navigates a period of significant structural and technological change.
