John Montgomery

John Montgomery is Group’s Executive Vice President of Brand Safety.  He was appointed to this role in August, 2016 to ensure that GroupM client’s brands are protected from risks in the digital supply chain, like fraud and piracy and to ensure that the digital components of their plans are effective in every region. 

John’s WPP career began when he joined Ogilvy in South Africa in 1989 as Media Director and launched Mindshare in that country. In the final three years he spent in South Africa, he was Managing Director of the Ogilvy Group in Cape Town, one of the most creative agencies in the Ogilvy Worldwide network. In 2001, John moved to Amsterdam as CEO, Ogilvy Group Netherlands.

In 2004, John relocated to New York to lead the Interactive media practice for Mindshare and Ogilvy and was subsequently appointed as Global CEO of Mindshare Interaction in 2006 where he established the digital practice for Mindshare worldwide. In 2009, he took on the role of COO of GroupM Interaction for North America and in 2015 was appointed as the Chairman of GroupM Connect North America.

John is seen as one of the digital innovators in the field and speaks regularly on issues such as Audience buying, Brand safety, Data Quality and Privacy.  He has represented the advertising industry to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and the White House and is on the Internet Steering Committee for the WEF. John is also immediate past chairman of the 4A’s Media Leadership Council and leads The Privacy Task group for 4A’s. In addition, John is co-chairman of the TAG anti-piracy initiative.

In 2013, John was nominated by Adweek as one of the 12 smartest people in media and won a Media All-Star Award from Media Post and was most recently acknowledged amongst the 100 people who make advertising great by the 4A's in the US.