How Annette King became the head of an advertising empire

Annette King has been at the forefront of some of the biggest and most recognisable advertising campaigns in the UK. She spoke to Andy Martin about how she became the CEO of Publicis

Annette King, CEO of Publicis (Publicis Groupe UK)

I never thought I’d say this: a McDonald’s ad had me welling up. It’s their Christmas 2020 “Forever Young” ad about the inner child and the adolescent kid and the single mum. I’m sobbing just writing that. And I am no fan of McDonald’s. The woman responsible for bringing out my inner child is Annette King, CEO of Publicis Groupe UK, an advertising empire spanning 21 different companies and 100 countries.

Funnily enough, she was the daughter of a single mum too. She is a working-class girl who made it in the world of Mad Men. King has had the kind of career that would be impossible in lockdown, since key turning points along the way seemed to have occurred typically in pubs.

The first significant pub in her life was Rudi’s Bar in Swindon. This was back in 1991 when, as she says: “You had to fight that bit harder to find a job.” She had recently finished a business studies degree at Oxford Polytechnic (as it was then, now Oxford Brookes) and she knew she wanted to go into a creative industry, probably based in London.