Roberto Quarta

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Roberto Quarta
Born (1949-05-10) May 10, 1949 (age 74)
Italy
Alma mater College of the Holy Cross (BA)
OccupationBusinessman
TitleChairman of Smith & Nephew and WPP plc
Board member of Smith & Nephew
WPP plc
Rexel SA
Italtel
Children2

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.

Contents

Early life and education

Roberto Quarta was born on May 10, 1949, in Italy. [1] [2] He emigrated to the United States at the age of 15, and he spent the rest of his adolescence in Brooklyn, New York City, [2] where his father was a tailor. [3] Quarta graduated from the College of the Holy Cross. [1] [4]

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. [5] 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). [6] 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. [7]

In June 2015, he was appointed chairman of WPP plc, succeeding Philip Lader. [8] [9] [10]

Following the resignation of Martin Sorrell, CEO and founder of WPP, he became executive chairman in April 2018. [11]

Personal life

Quarta is separated from his first wife, with whom he has a son and a daughter. [1] He remarried

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "UK: THE DAVIDSON INTERVIEW - ROBERTO QUARTA". Management Today. 1 October 1996. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  2. 1 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.