Steel, author of the book Truth, Lies and Advertising: the Art of Account Planning, joins WPP from the Omnicom-owned Goodby in San Francisco, where he was a vice-president.
He is charged with developing new client business for WPP, as well as advising existing clients on strategic and creative development.
Steel will be based in London and will work across WPP's agency groups including J Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather and Mediaedge:CIA. The move sees Steel return to the UK after 13 years handling account planning in the US.
Steel started his career in London with BMP DDB as a strategic planner, before joining Goodby, Silverstein in 1989. At that time, the agency had $40m (£28m) in billings -- by 2000, it had grown to $776m.
Among the various clients Steel has worked on are Budweiser, Hewlett-Packard, Nike and Pepsi. He was named the third best account planner outside the UK by ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 magazine last year, which described him as "one of the first exports of planning to the US".
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