Tro recently joined WPP as Chief Operating Officer after a long career at WPP's subsidiary, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide. He first came to Ogilvy as an entrepreneur-owner after selling a minority stake in his agency to Ogilvy in 1988. He went on to become head of all of Ogilvy's operations in Canada, leaving only to move to New York as the head of the company's flagship office, where he effectively increased billings by 50 percent and attracted new clients such as Kodak. In 1997, he became chairman of the whole North American region, Ogilvy's largest, with billings in excess of $5 billion, and home to its largest global brands including American Express, Ford, DuPont and IBM.
Throughout his career at Ogilvy, Tro has deployed the entrepreneurial skills and management savvy he gained in his early career in television production and facilities management, and then as an agency founder. As Head of North America, he used these skills to successfully implement a number of strategic initiatives. He managed the integration of OgilvyOne and Ogilvy Advertising under one management structure to take advantage of the revenue opportunities to be gained by expanding services to existing clients. He changed the management of all key operations to improve the quality and breadth of work. New offerings were invested in and nurtured (OgilvyInteractive, Brand Integration Group) and new partners were acquired (Lacek, Ben and 141). A big believer in the healthcare sector, he helped build Ogilvy's practice by bringing in key management that increased the business dramatically. He also sponsored and oversaw the merger of Ogilvy's healthcare practice with Cordiant's Healthworld, forming the global agency Ogilvy Healthworld.
Tro was born in Egypt to Armenian parents and became a Canadian citizen in his teens. He speaks five languages fluently and is married with two children.