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Roberto Quarta (born May 10, 1949) is an Italian-born American businessman. He is the chairman of Smith & Nephew, and the chairman of WPP plc since June 2015.

Early life and education

Roberto Quarta was born on May 10, 1949, in Italy. He emigrated to the United States at the age of 15, and he spent the rest of his adolescence in Brooklyn, New York City, where his father was a tailor. Quarta graduated from the College of the Holy Cross.

Career

His initial industrial management career was with BTR plc, where he rose to be a board director.

In 1993 he moved to become chief executive of BBA Group, where he executed strong performance improvement and portfolio change, producing a major increase in shareholder value. He later became chair of BBA (which was renamed BBA Aviation following the demerger of Fiberweb in November 2006), stepping down in 2007.

Quarta is a partner of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, a private equity group. He is on the board of two CD&R businesses, Rexel SA and Italtel. He was chairman of IMI plc (2011-2015). He has been on the boards of PowerGen plc, BAE Systems plc, and Equant NV. He has been the chairman of Smith & Nephew since 2014.

In June 2015, he was appointed chairman of WPP plc, succeeding Philip Lader.

Following the resignation of Martin Sorrell, CEO and founder of WPP, he became executive chairman in April 2018.

Personal life

Quarta is separated from his first wife, with whom he has a son and a daughter. He remarried

References

1. ^ "UK: THE DAVIDSON INTERVIEW - ROBERTO QUARTA". Management Today. 1 October 1996. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
2. ^ Mance, Henry (19 December 2014). "Cost-cutting Roberto Quarta at the gates of Fort Sorrell". Financial Times. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
3. Clark, Andrew. "Business big shot: Roberto Quarta". The Times. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
4. "Company Overview of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Inc.: Roberto Quarta". Bloomberg. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
5. "UK: THE DAVIDSON INTERVIEW - ROBERTO QUARTA". Managementtoday.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
6. "IMI plc annual report 2015" (PDF). IMI Corporate site. Retrieved 20 July 2016.
7. "Chairman - Roberto Quarta". Smith & Nephew. Retrieved 30 August 2017.
8. "Our leadership - WPP". www.wpp.com. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
9. Hellier, David (17 December 2014). "WPP ends its chairman search by hiring Roberto Quarta from IMI". cityam.com. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
10. "WPP lines up Roberto Quarta as chairman". campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
11. Erik Oster, Patrick Coffee (15 April 2018). "WPP CEO Martin Sorrell Steps Down Abruptly After 33 Years". www.adweek.com/. Retrieved 15 April 2018.

External links

• Youtube interview 2010

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• Living people
• 1949 births
• Italian emigrants to the United States
• College of the Holy Cross alumni
• Italian financial businesspeople
• American financiers
• WPP plc people
• American business biography, 1940s birth stubs