GroupM has hired former L’Oréal executive Aisha Khan to bolster the WPP media-buying division’s global ecommerce team.
Khan has joined the Global Commerce Executive team as executive director, Global Commerce Client Acceleration.
The appointment comes within weeks of ex-Flywheel executive Sandy Welsch being recruited by GroupM as WPP looks to better compete with rivals Publicis Groupe and Omnicom on offering retail media and data solutions for media clients. GroupM has also recently announced strategic partnerships with Shalion, Incremental, and Pacvue.
In the new role, Khan has been tasked with designing and leading “innovative and sustainable growth strategies” to marry commerce operations, media, and creativity for new and prospective GroupM clients.
She will work closely with global client leads and stakeholders across client teams to speed up adoption and integration of commerce media for advertisers. She will also mentor talent across the company’s network commerce experts across markets and agencies.
Over the last 15 years, Khan has managed operational teams responsible for more than $1bn of ecommerce activity for global FMCG companies kncluding L’Oréal, Kenvue, Reckitt, Nestlé, and Unilever. At L’Oréal, she oversaw Amazon Commercial Development for a year in the US.
She previously served in leadership roles at Momentum Commerce (between January and August 2023) and Publicis Groupe, overseeing commerce media strategy for those companies’ largest clients (2019-2020). She also worked a two-year stint as chief strategy officer for Packable, one of the largest Amazon third-party sellers in the US, until the end of 2021.
Samantha Bukowski, GroupM’s Global Head of Commerce, said that “Aisha’s diverse experience gives her a depth of perspective that is as important as it is rare.”
Bukowski continued: “To win in commerce today, it’s not enough to be an expert in media, operations, finance, or creativity alone. Great strategy sits at the intersection of all those things, which is where Aisha excels, and I am excited to see the impact I know she will have in driving sustainable growth for our clients well into the future.”
