Watch part two

This week on One on One, we meet Wire Plastic Products founder (WPP) and world-renowned advertising guru, Sir Martin Sorrell.

His ability to take on the big guys and come out on top built his fearsome reputation in the marketing, public relations and advertising industry.

From humble beginnings, this creative British businessman built a multi-billion dollar company that dominated the world of public relations and advertising.

He stunned the industry with a series of massive financial take-overs. By the 1990s, it was Martin Sorrell people turned to for market predications.

For the Cambridge and Harvard educated executive, born into a Jewish family in London at the end of the second world war, the turning point came in 1985, when he invested in a British shopping basket manufacturer.

Wire Plastic Products – or WPP – went on to become the largest media buying group on the planet, stunning the agency world with dramatic hostile take-overs of rivals.

For example, the cost of buying J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy and Mather in the late 1980s came to $566 and $825 million respectively.

However, Sir Martin's particular skill, was managing the ups and downs – seeing the multi-billion dollar organisation through both tough and buoyant times.

His critics have frequently tried to highlight his tenaciously aggressive nature and even his messy public divorce but there is not much that can dent a man who shapes an industry where image can be everything.

This episode of One on One aired from Saturday, June 27, 2009.