Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

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Radio 4. My castle My castaway this week is the businessman Sir Martin Sorrell. He's been called the

world's most influential adman. Focus, intensity and determination have powered him to the very top.

He's the founder and chief executive of WPP, the world's biggest advertising agency.

His grandparents came to Britain from Russia, signing their marriage registration with a cross because

they couldn't speak English.

By contrast, communication in all its guises has been their grandsonandsons 40. He says building a company is the

nearest thing a man can do to giving birth and nurturing a child to maturity.

It's that intense then, is it that personal? It's not just business for you Martin's office.

It didn't know it isn't just business because you create something or you start something which for me was at the age, the ripe old age of 40 which is very intimate and very personal.

When I started off what I wanted to do was to build a company and manage it.

I wanted it to be an entrepreneur and be a manager and be a manager and we now have a

107 country, 108 country operation and 150,000 people in one way or another and it's intellectually challenging.

I mean you make mistakes every day, it's really absorbing it's much more interesting

than it's ever been even at the age of 66 as the shifts in power that we see economic

political and social power across the world are very formidable and very interesting

at the same time.

You've said that when people call me a micro manager I take it as a compliment.

Your hands-on doesn't even cover it, I imagine.

Again, when you start it, if you start with two people in one room 26 years ago and you see it build, you know where

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