Thank you for joining us at our WPP 2024 Annual General Meeting. I'm Roberto Quarta, Chairman of the Company. I'm pleased to welcome shareholders, both virtually and in person, here today. As ever, please let us have your feedback about your experience. We always enjoy having that feedback. I hope this one will be enjoyable. Time is now just past 11:00 A.M., and I can confirm that a quorum is present, and I declare our AGM open. In order to begin the meeting, first and foremost, I'd like to introduce my fellow board members, all of whom are here in our offices today. Turning to our immediate right, I'm sure you will all recognize our CEO, Mark Read. Next to him is our CFO, Joanne Wilson, and to her right is Sandrine Dufour, Chair of our Audit Committee.
Next to Sandrine, we have Cindy Rose, and next to Cindy is Ya-Qin Zhang, followed by Simon Dingemans at the end. To my immediate left, we have our Company Secretary, Balbir Kelly-Bisla, and next to her is Angela Ahrendts, our Senior Independent Director. Alongside Angela, we have Jasmine Whitbread, Chair of our Compensation Committee, followed by Keith Weed, Chair of the Sustainability Committee. And next to Keith, we have Tom Ilube. Alongside Tom, we have Andrew Scott, our Chief Operating Officer. Now, before we turn to the formal business of the meeting, I'd like to say a few words and then ask Mark to present an update on our company's business performance and strategy. So, starting with the board, and we continue to proactively evaluate the composition of both the board and the executive team, and preparing for the future remained a top priority for 2023.
One of the main goals of such planning is to ensure that we have the diversity of representation that we know underpins strong performance at both the board and executive levels. Now, WPP continues to exceed the recommended targets for board diversity set by the FTSE Women Leaders Review and Parker Review, as well as the listing rules. We're very proud that in 2023, 43% of the executive committee members and their direct reports were women, compared to the FTSE 100 average of 35%. 42% of WPP board directors are women. Since 2021, leadership incentive plans have been directly linked to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we remain committed to driving continued progress in this vital area. Now, as we set out in the annual report and notice of AGM, a new member was appointed since our last AGM. Andrew Scott joined the board on the 7th of September, 2023.
Now, Andrew is responsible for operational performance and implementing the ongoing simplification of our company's portfolio. Andrew is also responsible for the company's mergers and acquisitions activity and has played a critical role in building WPP's capabilities in technology and AI. In addition, he oversees WPP's network of country leaders who connect and strengthen the talent and resources of the company's agencies in their local markets to deliver growth for our clients. Andrew's appointment recognizes the key role that he plays in the company and the importance of continuously improving operational effectiveness. As we have set out and explained in the annual report, I have now exceeded the recommended maximum tenure of nine years in a non-executive under the UK Corporate Governance Code.
Now, the board does intend to appoint a Chair designate to the board in due course, and in order to ensure a smooth transition, I have agreed to remain until my successor is appointed and transition into the role. So, on this basis, as you've seen, I'm putting myself up for reelection today. I would like to assure you that I remain committed to the company and to delivering strong leadership on behalf of all of our stakeholders throughout this additional appointment until the non-executive chair is appointed. Now, I'd like to turn to the company's performance, its progress over the recent years, and its plans for the future. Now, after 2 years of very strong growth, 2023 was much more challenging, largely due to the impact of reduced spending in the United States from technology clients, to which WPP has much greater exposures than most of its peers.
This held back our growth to 0.91% in 2023. Now, though, we were pleased to achieve a slight increase in headline operating margin in constant currency. Now, as anticipated earlier this year, the opening months of 2024 have also been challenging, with a fall in revenue less pass-through cost in the first quarter. Now, the company's performance reflected the toughest quarterly comparison of the year, with declines in the United States and China and the impact of a healthcare client loss in 2023 and continued lower spending from technology companies. Now, we do expect to return to growth in the balance of the year, and the company has reiterated its guidance of 0%-1% growth in 2024 and continued improvement in headline operating margins.
At a Capital Markets Day earlier this year, the executive team laid out plans to address the challenges and opportunities before the company through a strategy for accelerated growth, further margin expansion, and improved cash flow over the medium term. Now, Mark will talk about this strategy and WPP performance in greater detail during his presentation. But as I near the end of my tenure as Chairman of WPP, I would like to reflect for a moment on the transformation the company has undergone since the change in executive leadership in 2018. In early 2018, WPP was confronted with several major strategic hurdles. Our biggest client was reevaluating their partnership with us. Debt levels were at a historical high. There had been no growth since the first quarter of 2017, and in the crucial US market, which is our largest, no growth since the third quarter of 2016.
Now, in the face of these and other pressures, the new executive team brought stability and a fresh vision to WPP, transforming its culture and revitalizing its offerings to clients. Now, this is exemplified by new partnerships that we forged with major global brands, such as the Coca-Cola Company. This team has navigated a highly complex business landscape, investing in creativity, technology, talent, and evolving the company to meet the rapidly changing demands of our industry. We do not underestimate the task ahead. However, it is important to acknowledge that today's WPP is significantly a stronger company, one with a modern, integrated client proposition, leading positions in a growing market, and many promises in the strategic opportunities on the horizon. Now, I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to the executive team for their tireless effort to bring success to WPP and to its employees, clients, and shareholders.
Now, before I hand over to Mark, I'd like to share one final thought. During the Capital Markets Day, the leadership team presented a clear and compelling strategy for WPP's future, which has the full backing of this board. The event also served as a showcase for the company's leading capabilities and its incredibly talented people. I was reminded that WPP is truly an exceptional organization, as we've heard from industry's foremost minds in the application of AI to marketing: the world's top media investment specialist, an award-winning creative leader, and more. Now, I feel very fortunate to have chaired this company for the last nine years and look forward to seeing it thrive in the years ahead. So, I'd like to thank my WPP colleagues, my fellow board members, past and present, and, of course, our shareholders for their tremendous support throughout my time with the company. It's been an honor to serve as your Chairman. Over to Mark.
Thank you, Roberto, from me and everybody else. Let me add my welcome to those of you in the room as well as those who are joining us on the webcast. I'll start my comments at this stage. I'm looking back at the Capital Markets Day that Roberto mentioned that we held in January, where we laid out our strategy for the next five years. Then I'll give a review of our performance in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 before Rob Reilly, our Chief Creative Officer and my creative partner, shows you how the power of creative transformation is helping our clients connect with their customers and grow. Before I do that, please note you should read this important statement. Hopefully, the font is big enough.
Now, we began our CMD in January, setting out our journey to date, what we've achieved, and our plan for the future. Back in 2018, we called our strategy Radical Evolution. That's because we both wanted to be radical in our approach, but also move at the right pace, a pace that a people and client-centric business could absorb, who could make the changes that we needed to do without disruption. There's really been two phases of the strategy to date, the first from 2018 to 2020. We began by launching our position as the creative transformation company and set out with a new ambition. We integrated analog and digital assets, both VML and Y&R, to form VMLY&R, and Wunderman and J. Walter Thompson to form Wunderman Thompson.
And critically, we were able to dispose successfully of our 6% stake in Kantar, which gave us the financial buffer to withstand the impact of COVID, which hit just two months later. The second phase of our strategy we started in 2020 during COVID. In that period, we grew our client relationships, winning the largest-ever client review in our industry in our unique partnership with the Coca-Cola Company. We continued to strengthen our leadership and build a culture that brought us together, particularly during the pandemic. We invested in AI and new capabilities in influencer marketing and commerce. And all of these investments have taken us to the third phase of our strategy today that we're calling Innovating to Lead, because WPP has both innovation and the ambition ambition to lead our industry at its heart.
So, turning to that, you know, really, four strategic imperatives frame how we deliver the strategy. The first centers on AI, the second on creativity and creative transformation, the third are world-class brands, and the fourth, an imperative for us to execute efficiently and with discipline. We believe that AI will drive a new age of creativity, marketing, and media, and be as transformative to our business and industry as the internet was just some 30 years ago. Our industry, the media industry, may be the most disrupted of any over this time, first by the internet, then by the mobile revolution, and now by AI. However, importantly, through this time, WPP has remained relevant to its clients, and our goal is to remain just as relevant in this new AI age. At our CMD, we looked at how WPP would achieve this and deliver results to our clients.
Now, first, AI is going to make us more efficient. We can reinvest that and use it to improve our margins. Secondly, we have to embed AI in our products and services, as well as create new ones. We showed many of those at our CMD. Now, tackling this challenge, we think that WPP has a very strong set of competitive assets. The first is the technical expertise in Satalia, our AI technology company that we acquired 2.5 years ago. Think of them as our DeepMind, if you like. They enable us to build and train sophisticated AI models, and it's a scarce talent. Secondly, using those AI capabilities, we're able to connect this technology expertise with marketing domain knowledge. We're able to train and build proprietary models for WPP and our clients.
Thirdly, we have WPP Open, our intelligent marketing operating system powered by AI, enabling us to deploy our products across different clients and disciplines. Fourthly, we have a coordinated investment plan across WPP as a single company and a much simpler WPP. Finally, for us, partnerships are critical. While investment is important, access to partners such as Google and Microsoft is, in some ways, even more important because they allow us to leverage the billions and billions of dollars of investment these major technology companies are investing in this area. We believe that AI will support our accelerated growth and improve our efficiency. Here are some examples of how we can do this in practice. First, it's going to allow us to augment our creativity, not to replace human beings, but enhance their work to deliver stronger ROI to our clients.
Secondly, we can offer AI services, just as we did with the U.S. paint giant Sherwin-Williams to develop an AI-powered commerce platform, offering the many clients we're currently consulting with on how to use AI and enable it in their own organizations. Thirdly, it's going to enable us to sell new technology solutions through WPP Open, earning technology-based license fees that are powered by our AI services. It's also going to help us open up new business models, just as we did with Essence and Finecast in the past, to move away from an hours-based pricing model to new output and return-based pricing models. And finally, it's going to enable us to work faster, more efficiently, unlocking efficiencies in our back office in areas such as finance and HR. So that's our first objective, AI. Our second is to drive growth through the power of creative transformation.
Here we continue to see strong demand from clients for simpler, more integrated solutions. We believe, as a company, we have a very well-balanced offer with a leading position in media, creative, production, public relations, as well as an unparalleled global footprint. These strengths are shown by the continued recognition and awards won by our agencies. In a few moments, Rob Reilly, our Chief Creative Officer, will show you some examples of how we're doing this, how we're bringing creative transformation to life for our clients. Now, the third element of our strategy is to build world-class brands. We're doing a lot of work now in this area. We've created a new powerhouse creative agency in VML. GroupM, the world's leading media agency, is transforming itself to grow faster and create more scale.
Along with the creation of Burson, the world's second-largest public relations company, this now means that six brands represent 90% of WPP's business, a radical shift from the company back in 2018 that Roberto mentioned, a simpler, more effective strategy. So together, these first three objectives contribute to the fourth, to drive stronger financial performance, both in terms of margin and cash conversion. We want to accelerate our growth to 3% plus organically. At the same time, we're committed to deliver a headline operating profit margin in the range of 16%-17%, supported by the structural cost savings from our restructuring. And finally, we're able to improve, aiming to improve our cash generation significantly. Together, this will allow us to maintain a strong investment-grade balance sheet.
Turning to our results in 2023 in the first quarter of this year, I'd say we had a resilient performance in 2023 with like-for-like growth of 0.9% and a headline operating margin of 14.8%, up 0.2% on a constant currency basis that showed, I think, strong cost control and continued margin progression, which is important. We had strong growth outside the U.S., but with our non-U.S. business growing 3.3%, the U.K. and India actually doing particularly well, and some challenges in China. However, the U.S. market did decline 2.8%, as strong growth in our CPG clients was outweighed by lower revenues from technology clients and in the retail sector.
Our performance in the first quarter of 2024, while not as strong as we would like, was very much in line with our expectations and budgets for the year, against the toughest quarterly comparison of the year, really being driven by continued pressure from technology clients in the impact of a regrettable loss of a healthcare client. That said, we do see momentum improving over the rest of this year. We expect technology clients to turn from a negative in Q1 to positive over the course of the year and to be important long-term strategic partners for us. The impacts of budget cuts will tail off. We also have a strong new business pipeline and are very focused on converting it. In addition, our new structure is making us more agile and more competitive, and the impact of AI is starting to be seen across the business.
We had a good series of client wins in Q1, particularly in media with Nestlé, but also in healthcare, where we now have the ability to work with clients in sectors where we may not have been able to work with them before. So that all led us to reiterate our guidance for the year, on the first quarter, announcement. Finally, I'd like to cover our returns to shareholders. These amount to some GBP 4 billion over the last 5 years, reflecting a mix of share purchases and dividends. We continue to invest in our business and to maintain a strong, investment-grade balance sheet while supporting our dividend policies around 40% of headline earnings. So for 2023, the proposed 24.4p final dividend, together with the interim dividend paid in November, gives us a full-year dividend of 39.4p per share, stable with last year.
So to summarize, I think we have every confidence in our strategy, which is working well with clients and across the business. We delivered a first quarter very much as we expected, and we expect to see momentum improving throughout the balance of this year. As a result, we reiterated our guidance for the year. Our confidence in the future is underpinned by our faith in the many talented individuals who make up the 114,000 people who work for your company around the world. I'd like to close by thanking each of them very much for their efforts and commitment, and to the company. And thank you all very much for listening. So, Rob, I'll hand over to our Chief Creative Officer to show you the impact that creativity is having on some of our most important clients. Over to you, Rob. Good to see you in this room today.
Good morning. Yeah. I'm here. I guess you can tell from the black shirt that I'm the creative guy. But it's a pleasure to be here. Hopefully, you can all see me with the backlit. But, you know, I like to say I have the best job in the world. You know, I've been at WPP for three years. Unlike Mark and maybe some other CEOs on the board, it's a hard job being a CEO, a job that I actually don't want, because my job is to work on the product 100% of the time. What an amazing job to wake up to. Now, the reason I joined WPP is because of the mission, creative transformation. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, the planet, clients, and communities.
What an incredible thing to do. 115,000 people wake up every day with that mission. What an incredible thing to do. So I'm going to show a lot of work in the 10 minutes I have. So no better example, I think, proves out our mission than Corona. Now, anybody like Corona the beer? Had a Corona beer in the past? I think so, right? With a lime, right? A lime. Well, in China, one of the biggest problems is they don't have limes. So this is what our company, David, partnered with AB InBev to do. We all know the best way to enjoy a Corona is with lime. But China, the country where we drink the most beer in the world, is also the country that produces the least limes of good quality in the world.
At the same time, more than 20% of our farmers live in poverty. So instead of fixing the supply issue by simply importing limes, we decided to start a new business. Introducing Corona Extra Lime, a completely new lime brand where the highest quality standard in the market finally hit the shelves all over China, improving the experience of drinking Corona, but also the lives of thousands of farmers since all profits were redirected to them so they could keep growing their farms. Today, our lime serves not only as an unprecedented medium. It's a sustainable business that is boosting our beer business even further. This initiative was recognized by the National Council Awards, the National Congress, and throughout the world, making the brand power of Corona thrive like never before. It's the biggest commitment Corona has ever had in a single market. Want a business that bears fruits?
Try growing limes. I mean, it's a mind-blowing idea. Usually, people can clap after that. That's a mind-blowing idea. So yeah, there we go. There we go. It's one of my favorite ideas. Doing good for the world, but also doing good for business. That's what we're about. But let's talk about why creativity matters, right? Now, we know it as an art word or a music word or a Hollywood word or an award show word. But like, to me, creativity is how the world solves really hard problems. Think about it. We're here today because someone figured out how to sell the governments of the world on a product that didn't exist, and that was the COVID vaccine, right? So think about how creativity has really helped us, over the last few years. But it's also good for business. Now, there's a little company startup called McKinsey.
I don't know if anybody's heard of McKinsey. Well, they partnered with Cannes Lions, a big award show, and did a study that companies with the highest quality creativity outperformed their peers in organic revenue growth and shareholder return. So again, this isn't just Rob Reilly talking about creativity. This is McKinsey saying better creativity works. But the only metric that matters to me is bold work that leads to great business results. So just like the case you saw, I don't show anything that doesn't have amazing results. And probably our best example of a company that has bet heavily on creativity is Coca-Cola. Now, we've had Coca-Cola for about 2 years now. We don't just do the advertising for them. We do the PR and the social and the media. And creativity is infused in everything they do. And the results are incredible. So the ideas are incredible.
Everything from CRM, you know, programs to doing long-form shows on Amazon, Coca-Cola has bet fully on it, and especially AI. And this is one of my favorite examples. You may have heard about this. It's a recycling campaign. Now, if you had asked me five years ago, would Coca-Cola ever crush their can to prove a point? Well, they did for the Recycle Me campaign. And it's brilliant. So these are all the Coca-Cola logo crushed. And this is here in Times Square. So what a brilliant campaign from a brilliant company and a great partner for us. But again, it doesn't matter if we do wildly, incredibly bold work if we don't have great business results. So in 2023, Coca-Cola was 9% year-over-year growth, the only company, the only, you know, top 10 company to grow in that year.
So we're very proud to do the work, but also that the results are also yielded. But we do things way beyond traditional advertising, though. Everybody watches Super Bowl. I know I know you probably get it over here, but like, just like the holiday commercials in London and the U.K., like, the Super Bowl is our holiday commercial time. It's the biggest thing. And it's usually a place where traditional advertising, you know, is really on display. WPP last year had 4 of the top 5. So that's an impressive stat. So beyond the things we're doing with, like, Corona Lime, we're also really good at still making things like television commercials. But this is one of my favorite. And this is Mark Read's, I think, your favorite idea.
Every presentation I make, "Can you show the FitChix ?" So again, these are the kinds of ideas we are doing way beyond advertising. And this is called FitChix . You'll have a smile. Free range, open range, cage-free eggs. It's all a bit... Yeah, a bit confusing. So we're going to make it a whole lot easier. FitChix . Tracking our chickens, then printing their steps onto our eggs. We started by designing the world's first step counter for a chicken with GPS and customized software, and we made sure it was user-friendly. The FitChix device allows us to track the movement of our chickens across the farm to see how free they really are. Every week, we fit the devices to a group of chickens to get an average daily step count. The results are then printed onto our eggs and delivered nationwide.
After turning the humble egg into the newest form of media, we lodged a campaign that got egg buyers thinking twice. We even made our chickens famous and put their workouts on Strava. Our next guest is taking free-range eggs to the next level. You might be used to counting your own steps each day, but... These girls are clocking up three times that amount. FitChix . FitChix of the farm. FitChix . He's strapping fitness trackers onto his flock. We even started selling out of eggs. Our farms couldn't keep up. Farmers need to be clear and honest about their farming methods so that consumers can make an educated choice. By tracking our chickens and sharing their steps, we brought honesty to a misleading industry, empowering everyday people and farmers to help change the egg industry for good.
So next time you go buy some eggs, go for the honest ones. Better get my steps in. I mean, you can clap for that too, because that's a pretty incredible idea. And you're wondering, are there some crazy people who work at WPP in the creative department ? The answer is yes, 100% there are. So we've talked a lot about AI. Mark just talked about AI. This is a brilliant campaign done for a plant-based food company where we aged through AI, aged animals, done by AKQA. So there's been a lot of talk about it. But as Mark said, we're in the business of human creativity enhanced by AI. So AI is going to put a lot of things in the world.
A lot of companies are going to be able to put content into the world, but it's going to take great creative people and strategic people to be the curators of that. And we, I think we have the best talent in the world. And we've been doing AI. The reality is we've been using AI for years upon years, whether it's using AI to create Serena versus Serena for Nike, or this idea. So we were debating on who would be the George Clooney of the U.K. I guess Daniel Craig. Is that right? I would say so. Daniel Craig. Well, Shah Rukh Khan is the Daniel Craig of India. He's the biggest action movie star, the Tom Cruise, if you will, of India.
What we did was we actually, for small businesses, for Cadbury, we were able to use AI to create him doing commercials for thousands and thousands of brands, for small businesses during the time of Diwali, which is all about generosity. What a genius idea. We did this two years ago. So it was the most awarded creatively, but also the most effective ad of 2022. So again, ideas that are wildly creative, but also wildly successful business-wise. This is my favorite idea, though. I have a prop. I have a prop. I often don't do props, but this is a prop. Anybody have a hard time reading? Does anybody have a hard time reading medical packages? Anybody? I do. Can't see anything right now. I can't see this. Well, we partnered with our company, Grey, partnered with Haleon and Microsoft.
Again, we're in an age of now this hyper-collaboration where Microsoft and Haleon are combining forces with our companies to create something very simple. So while they've put Braille on the packaging to so you can decide so you can figure out what the package is, it's Panadol, they've now figured out a way to take these codes. You can scan this barcode and it gives you audio cues on the ingredients and the instructions to use them. It's a genius idea. So that's what AI is doing for us and doing for consumers. Like I said, I don't like to talk too much about awards, but they still matter. They attract talent for us. They're very important to our clients. Work is an aggregation of all the top award shows, things like Cannes Lions you may have heard of, or the One Show or the Effies.
That's what work is. We've been number 1 the last 2 years creatively, also number 1 in media, and number 1 and number 2 the last 2 years in effectiveness. Globally, I think we're one of the best, if not the best, creative companies in the world. What's important is we know how to make locally relevant work. I'm going to end with this piece. I don't know if you've seen this from the NHS. I'm learning very quickly. This is a giant; we don't have an NHS in America, but I know how important this is to the people of London, of the U.K. This piece was done and inspired by one of our employees from VML. Her son was suffering and needed an organ transplant. She approached NHS with VML and WPP support and created this.
Ralph Tatham was diagnosed with cancer at the start of the year and needs a liver, bowel, and pancreas transplant to survive. That's my son she's talking about. And this is how we saved his life. There were not enough child organ donors in the UK because no parent wants to think about the possibility of their child's death. And also, this wasn't just about Ralph. 233 children were on the transplant waiting list, and all they could do was wait and wait and wait for a donor. NHS Blood and Transplant wanted to confront parents with the need for child donors. Introducing Waiting to Live, 233 handcrafted dolls representing 233 real children on the transplant waiting list, placed where it matters most, in their local medical waiting rooms around the UK, allowing exactly the right audience to hear why they should sign up to the organ donation register. Hello.
I'm Freddie. I'm Charlie. I'm 13. I'm Stephan. Craftspeople from all over the U.K. came together to make the dolls. They became influencers for the campaign and started the conversations we could only have wished for. 230 dolls in children's hospitals around the country. Briefly explain this fantastic doll. Each one of them represents a child who's in need of an organ transplant. Very, very few donors in the U.K. The dolls caught lots of attention far and wide. We went even bigger, aiming for more parents to register their children as donors, achieving 1.5 billion impressions, each one of them potentially lifesaving, resulting in over 5,000 donor registrations in three months. And the best result of all, my son Ralph got his multi-organ transplant. I'd love to see who I become. But there are still hundreds of children waiting and waiting.
So you can see we have the best creative agencies. We partner with GroupM, the creative agency's partner with the best media company and biggest media company. And we have the best production in Hogarth. Those three things have created this kind of work that is widely creative, but also incredibly successful business-wise. So thank you.
Okay. Now, we'll move on to the formal business of this AGM. You will all have received a copy of the notice of the meeting dated 21 March 2024, which fully explains all agenda items for today's meeting. Now, as usual, I will take the notice of the meeting as read. Now, before dealing with the terms of business contained in the notice, we would like to address any questions which are relevant to the business of the meeting. For those shareholders joining us virtually, if you have not already submitted a question in advance and would like to ask a question, you may submit questions via the live webcast.
To ask a question, you should select the Ask a Question tab from within the navigation bar at the top right corner of the screen to open the message box and type in your question. Once finished, press the Submit button to the right of the message box to submit your question. Now, for those shareholders here in the room who would like to ask a question, please raise your hand so that a microphone can be brought to you. Please state your name before proceeding with your question. May I remind you that only registered shareholders, duly authorized representatives, or registered proxies may ask a question. Now, every effort will be made to give shareholders the opportunity to ask a question if they wish to do so. So first, we'll start with questions from those shareholders here in the room. Gentlemen on the left.
Nick Steiner, private shareholder. Good afternoon. A couple of well, I enjoyed the presentation, and particularly the innovations that were videoed. A couple of questions. On page six, the report of assignment losses last year. Why were those assignments lost, and what would we learn from those losses? And the second one really sort of picks up on the innovation which has been shown and the need to gain and attract talent. And you have this on page eight, getting those, how you aim to keep the talent, how you aim to sort of drive innovation sensibly because it can lead to all sorts of ideas in different cultures and things like that. And what is the churn rate of these highly talented people? Thank you for your questions. I think Mark is best suited for.
Yeah. So look, ours is a very competitive business, and sadly, clients do review work from time to time. I think there were two issues we had. The first was Pfizer, which is a major client, put its business up for review, and we were not successful in retaining the business we had. I think we've had a full and frank discussion with the client and our teams to make sure that we do a better job in other occasions, and I think have learned what we need to do in terms of talent and assembling it and working together more effectively. I think there was also a number of client losses in our US media business, two or three. We've changed the leadership in the US and the synergy program, which is the simplification of GroupM, is designed, again, to create a simpler structure that I think in some ways is behind what we do. So we do, and I personally call clients when we're not successful and try to get to the bottom of what happened and why it happened.
And by the way, I also call clients when we win and try to find out what we did well. And often, it might not surprise you seeing Rob's presentation. It's the quality of the people and the way the people get on that lead us to win assignments. I think that takes us to the second question. I think in terms of retaining people, look, we could always do better. I mean, I never like people leaving, although the fact that people want our people is a reflection of the quality of talent of the people that we do have. But I do think we do a good job of keeping very different types of people inside our organization. We have creative people. We have technologists. We have data scientists. We have people that are fantastic at finance and HR.
So we have a great diversity of talent inside the company. Our turnover actually was low, as you would imagine, during COVID. It peaked at about 30% in that 2022 and has come down significantly since then to just over about 20%. So people stay on average five years. I'd say people who are more experienced stay longer. And we tend to have quite a lot of churn in the junior levels of the company, as you would expect in a business where we do recruit a lot of people coming out of university. So look, it's a big emphasis. I'm pleased to say Stephan, our CTO, has been with us now, I think, 10 years. He joined us from an acquisition. I think about a lot of the talent, Daniel, who was the leader of Satalia, who came into the business 2.5 years ago, he and all his team are here. So it's a big area of focus for us and something that, as you would expect, we're keen to increase.
Thank you. The next question.
Yes, sir.
Thanks. Andrew Govan, Shareholder. The USA, your billing fell by I thought it was about 2.3%, but you've shown 2.8% in 2023. And then the first quarter of this year, it's already down 4.1%. I mean, can you just explain what's going on to a layman in the advertising business? Are you losing to your competitors? Are clients cutting back? Are the advertising rates getting lower, or are you just losing clients?
So I'll take that to it. Yeah. Look, I think the first question and your question are very closely related. I mean, the reality is that Pfizer is a global pharmaceutical company, but most of its money is spent, as you would imagine, in healthcare marketing in the U.S. So 80% of our business with them is in the U.S. And the media issues, the media losses we had were in the U.S. So the challenge for our U.S. business has been partly those client losses and then partly, as Roberto said and mentioned in his script, technology clients. Now, we're very fortunate. We have Google, Microsoft, Dell, Apple, Intel, Salesforce, Adobe, Uber in our client list. We have a fantastic portfolio of clients. And from 2018, 2019 to 2022, 2023, that was a source of great strength. Unfortunately, as you know, you read about Mark Zuckerberg's year of efficiency.
A lot of those companies took a somewhat different approach to marketing over the course of 2023, and that went into 2024. So we saw our technology clients reduce their spend last year by between 8%-9%, and that continued into this year. And again, most of those clients are based in the US and do much of their marketing in the US. So I think that it's really a reflection of partially client losses, but partially reduction in spend from technology clients. Now, our view is that those technology clients are going to be a real long-run source of competitive strength. Google is our third-largest client. I mean, if you look at WPP, we work with three of the world's four most valuable companies, Google, Microsoft, and Apple, in a major way.
I think that that's something that we should be proud of and something that will be, in the long run, a source of great competitive strength for us. I mean, we are their single largest marketing partner. Unfortunately, when they catch a cold or when they decide to reduce their marketing spend, we're on the receiving end of that. And I think that's, at heart, the challenge in the US. My view, I think, is they'll come back to marketing. As these new AI products launch in a competitive market, they're going to get back to talking to customers and consumers. So I think that we have to be a little bit patient. And I'm an impatient person. We have to be both patient and impatient to see that turn around. But that was really the explanation behind Q1 performance in the United States.
I wanted to ask you, the Olympics, are you going to benefit from that?
I think that in the I don't want to say the old days. Historically, we were paid as a percentage of media. And so when the Olympics took place, it tended to bump up media prices and bump up our revenues. That's not how we get paid today. We tend to get paid on fees. So the Olympics has a somewhat positive effect. And you see we're working with a number of Olympic sponsors, Coca-Cola companies. So it will help, but it's not as significant an impact as it used to be if you go back 20 or 30 years.
Thank you.
Any other question from the floor? Gentleman in the back here.
John Ridgway , ordinary shareholder. There's a likely change of government this year. What effect does the board think this will have on the business?
Can I take that? Look, I'd say you want to take that, Roberto?
No. First of all, thank you for your projection, but I think you're probably right. But one of the things that Mark, I'm sure, will highlight is that while we have a strong business in the UK, we are a truly international company. And therefore, I think we're better suited to weather the storm versus those who are sort of looking strictly at being a single geography business. And that is the benefit of being an international group, of the depth and breadth that WPP is. Now, Mark.
No. I mean, that was the point I was going to make. 12%-13% of our business is in the UK. 87%-88% of it is outside of it. I think if there's a change in government, I think there'll be continued support for what WPP does, creativity and the creative sector overall, although we don't tend to really depend on the government for our success. We paddle our own canoe, if you like. So I think that we'll deal with the situation as it is. But we have a very diversified company, a very diversified geographic footprint.
I also think it's very fair to say, Mark, that we're very nonpolitical on a global scale, very nonpolitical. Sorry?
So the shareholders.
Very good. Thank you for that. Any other question? Okay. I see. So there seem to be. There's one in the back. Oh, sorry.
Sorry. I came late. Just one question, please, if I may. Given the conflicts which are increasing globally, and 80% of your business is outside UK, how do you assess the risk within the next 5-10 years? Because there is so much uncertainty about conflicts. And although people are masquerading that we will find the solutions, solutions, in fact, are leading to more conflicts. Do you have any comment on that?
Well, look, I think you're right. There is more conflict and tension in the world, and the world is becoming more polarized. It's something that we advise our clients on and how to deal with that. You went through a terrible situation in Ukraine. We had about 200 people in Ukraine. And I can look at some of the team here in the room. We spent a lot of time helping them and helping them deal with that situation on a personal level. Some of them have remained in the country. Some of them are outside working for some of our businesses outside of Ukraine. And we do a lot of work with the Ukrainian government, both pro bono and paid work, to support that cause.
I think we're very conscious, primarily, of our people's safety and making sure that whatever happens, we can look after the people that work for us around the world. But I think we have to, unfortunately, deal with the world as we find it, not as we'd want it to be. And what we have to do is make sure that we're aware of the risks. One of the reasons clients come to us is that we can help them grow their business. We have fantastic well, more than 10,000 people in India, close to 7,000 people in China, 6,000 people in Brazil.
We are truly, as you say, a global company. We don't tend to trade across borders. We tend to work in individual markets with local people serving local clients. And the number one priority is the safety and security of our people. And then we have to deal with the consequences as it is. I don't think that the solution to the problem is somehow to retreat to Great Britain. We can't do that. There are some markets like Russia where we decided that we couldn't continue to operate in that market in a way that was consistent with our values. But that was maybe, in that case, an easier decision. But I think that's something that we need to think about. And we do apply that to the lens of where we work and how we work and the work that we do as an organization.
Thank you. Thank you, Mark.
I don't see any other hands, do I? No other questions? Okay. Thank you. So I'll just double-check. It appears that we don't have any questions. Is that right, Tom? Nothing online. Nothing online. Okay. Great. All right. Then we'll now move on to the business of the meeting. So the resolutions are set out in the notice of the meeting. And I now formally propose that each of the resolutions are put to the vote of the meeting. Resolutions 1-18 are proposed as ordinary resolutions and require a simple majority of votes to be passed, while resolutions 19-21 are proposed as special resolutions and require at least two-thirds of the votes to be cast in favor. As stated in the notice, all resolutions will be determined by way of a poll rather than a show of hands.
Now I will direct the company's registrar, Computershare Investor Services, to act as scrutineers in relation to the poll. Only the votes of shareholders present today or shareholders who have submitted their proxy votes in accordance with the details set out on the proxy form will be taken into account. Now, when you came into the room, you were each given a poll card with all those resolutions that have been proposed at this annual general meeting. If you're a shareholder or a proxy for shareholders, including a proxy for the U.S. Depositary with respect to shares represented by ADRs, please complete that card and sign it where indicated. In the case of a corporate shareholder, the card should be completed by its authorized representative present at this meeting or by proxy.
The number of shares being voted should be entered in the poll card, and all details will be checked against the company's share register. Finally, I should mention that those shareholders present who've already lodged proxies and do not wish to change their vote need not vote on the poll unless they wish to do so. Please place your completed poll card in the ballot boxes located by the doors as you leave the meeting. Now, I'd like to thank all those shareholders who took time to submit their proxy votes in advance of the meeting.
Proxy votes submitted ahead of today's meeting, in respect of which I, as the chair of the meeting, have been appointed as proxy and have completed a poll card in respect of such votes, amounting to approximately the average of 900 million votes per resolution, representing over 80% of the company's issued share capital in respect of each resolution. Now, based on the proxy votes received, I can tell you that the provisional results show that all resolutions are carried. The poll will close in 10 minutes, and the results will be released by a stock exchange announcement and will be available on our website as soon as practically possible. That now concludes the formal business of the meeting. Now, on behalf of the board, I'd like to thank all shareholders for their participation today and all stakeholders for their continued support. Refreshments will now be served in the lobby area on the ground floor. Thank you very much, and look forward to seeing you all downstairs. Thank you.