Reuters names Chris Wade as VP of Communications

UK: Reuters has gone shopping in WPP’s executive suite. Chris Wade, who has spent the best part of 14 years rising through the advertising giant’s communications ranks, will join the news agency on 6th July as vice president, Reuters communications, taking a seat on the Reuters executive committee and the top job overseeing the agency’s global messaging.

The announcement came in a staff note from Reuters president Paul Bascobert, who left little doubt about the scale of the appointment. Wade will lead communications for Reuters worldwide, with every other member of the communications team reporting in to him. His brief is squarely external: building the Reuters brand across both the editorial and commercial sides of the business, with public relations a particular focus. He will be based in London, report to Amy Messano, and work in close, dotted-line tandem with Bascobert himself, alongside Alessandra and the rest of the Reuters leadership.

Wade’s cv reads like a tour of Britain’s media and corporate landscape over the past quarter-century. He spent his most recent stretch at WPP, working up from head of communications for EMEA in 2012 to chief communications officer by 2019, and finally director of communications and corporate affairs from 2022, a post he held until stepping into a senior advisor role this September. Before WPP, he ran communications for Guardian Media Group, having joined the Guardian stable in 2006 and worked his way up from head of communications to group director by 2008. His career started further back still, at Trinity Mirror, where he spent six years climbing from senior press officer to communications manager between 2000 and 2006. He has also given his time pro bono to the Social Mobility Business Partnership since November 2025.

Bascobert was unambiguous about why Wade got the nod. Throughout the recruitment process, he said, Wade showed a deep grasp of Reuters and real respect for its journalistic principles, the qualities that apparently sealed the deal over whatever the competition was offering.

For WPP, it is another senior departure to absorb. For Reuters, it is a statement of intent: in a media landscape where trust is currency and reputations are won or lost in a news cycle, the agency has just bought itself one of Fleet Street’s most battle-hardened operators. Wade starts in July. The clock, as ever in this business, is already ticking.