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SapientNitro's David Thorpe Joins UK Government Digital Service as Deputy Director of Digital Policy

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By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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SapientNitro’s David Thorpe Joins UK Government Digital Service as Deputy Director of Digital Policy

BOSTON & LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)– SapientNitro, part of Sapient (NAS: SAPE) , today announced that David Thorpe has been named to the United Kingdom’s Cabinet Office as Deputy Director of Digital Policy in the Government Digital Service (GDS) team. Thorpe will maintain his affiliation with SapientNitro as Vice President, Strategy and Analysis, while serving his native government during this prestigious term.

The one-year secondment is part of the UK government‘s Commercial Interchange Program, designed to facilitate the exchange of skills and knowledge with the private sector. Thorpe’s work will support the Government Digital Strategy of transforming its services to become “digital by default” and will contribute to its Civil Service Reform Plan.

He reports to Mike Bracken, Executive Director of GDS.

“We are delighted to welcome David to the team, as he brings deep expertise in innovative business strategy and shares our mission to drive ‘digital by default’ standards across government,” said Bracken. “David was a natural choice based on his tremendous experience in helping public and private sector organizations to understand and adapt to complex changes in their business environments. That’s the kind of strategic expertise and drive we need to affect meaningful reform of the UK civil service.”

GDS, part of the UK Cabinet Office, is dedicated to creating digital government services that are so good that citizens prefer to use them. Thorpe joins a team recently described by Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media, as “the best team working in digital in government in the world.”

Added Thorpe: “It’s a privilege to work every day with a team that is breaking new ground in the design of world-class digital services. Governments everywhere need to be asking, ‘how can we empower and serve citizens better?’ The work at GDS is fundamentally rewriting the social contract between government and citizens by focusing on the evolving needs of the always-on user.”

Thorpe joined SapientNitro from the Institute of State Effectiveness, where he focused on models of governance, security, and market building. His prior agency experience includes tenures as partner and global lead at Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam. Thorpe also has held senior positions at The New Yorker andRandom House. He serves on the advisory board of the Rockefeller Foundation’s NYC Cultural Innovation Fund and is a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute.

“It is thinkers, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Should I Buy WPP?

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By Harvey Jones, The Motley Fool

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LONDON — It’s time to go shopping for shares again, but where to start? There are loads of great stocks to choose from, and I’ve got my wallet out. So should I buy WPP ?

Ad men
If you want to know how to get ahead in advertising, ask WPP. It’s one of the world’s largest advertising and marketing groups, an established presence in both developed and emerging markets, notably China. It owns several agencies, including Ogilvy & Mather, and boasts a raft of big-name clients including American Express, Colgate-Palmolive, GlaxosmithKline, HSBC, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Nestle, Unilever, and Vodafone. Impressive. So should I buy it?

Ugly beautiful
The market likes this stock, and with good reason. WPP has enjoyed a relentless run of share-price growth, up 85% over five years, 67% over three years, and 30% over 12 months. Its recently published full-year results beat expectations to deliver a 7% rise in profits before tax to 1.3 billion pounds. 2012 revenues rose 2.9% to 10.37 billion pounds, the second successive year revenues have topped 10 billion pounds. WPP may look like a rare beauty, with operating margins hitting a record high of 14.8%, but it got there the ugly way, admits CEO Martin Sorrell. Although it posted 4% growth, difficult market conditions sparked a 1% drop in like-for-like revenues.

As football managers say, there’s an art to winning ugly. WPP has shown it has the resilience to what Sorrell calls the four “grey swans” of global uncertainty: Europe, the Middle East, China, and the U.S. Strong global diversification helps, with a powerful performance across Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa offsetting weakness in the U.S. and Europe. 2013 looks like another tough year, with the U.S. a particular worry, although WPP expects the 2014 World Cup in Brazil to lift everybody’s spirits. Its forward-looking digital strategy should also reap rewards, as more companies switch their efforts online.

Reaping dividends
After a few days to digest the results, brokers came out in favour of WPP, which currently trades at 10.76 pounds. Last week, JP Morgan lifted its target price from 10.54 pounds to 12.82 pounds and maintained its overweight rating. Goldman Sachs has hiked its target price from 11.05 pounds to 11.55 pounds, while Investec lifted its target price by 25 pence to 11.75 pounds. Both rate WPP a buy. If you like this stock, you’re in good company. WPP isn’t the biggest-yielding stock on the FTSE 100 at just 2.6% a year, but management is pursuing a progressive dividend policy and has just hiked its payout by a mighty 16%. Since the dividend is covered 2.7 times, there should be scope for future growth. The yield is forecast to rise to 3.4% by Dec. 2014.

These are tricky conditions for advertising and marketing companies, and projected earnings-per-share (EPS) growth of 3% in 2013 reflect that, but that should rise to 10% in 2014. WPP isn’t cheap, trading at 14 times earnings and on a PEG ratio of 1.5, but that’s hardly surprising, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance