Less than 0.1% of creative agencies are founded by women. Huh?
That’s an especially crazy stat when you consider that women greatly outnumber men in college design programs. It’s our not-so-covert covert mission to increase that number and the disproportionate percentage of people of color working in the industry at large (just 10%) and to help make it safer, more equitable and inclusive. Cool. How?
1. Nurturing the next generation of fearless leaders in our industry through our Creative Leaders Fellowship Program — a formal mentorship and training program focused on starting and running a creative business.
2. Speaking to students about the realities of the industry and sharing things we wish we would have known when we were first starting out. Currently booking for our 2019-2020 College Speaking Series — “Unspoken Truths”. More info HERE . We also do a version of this presentation for conferences and professionals.
3. Partnering with other industry advocates to create tools like this Resource Guide that help educate our peers in the creative industry on how they can join us in making change.
4. Creating and modeling a more progressive, balanced work environment that keeps talented women and people of color from dropping out mid-career.
5. And, on the creative tip, we started a collaborative street-level awareness campaign, called The BossLady Project, aimed at confronting the creative industry’s condoned culture of misogyny and old school power structure using design, music, art, and other creative expressions.
Ours is truly a field that’s been much slower to progress than most. And that has got to change. Not just for people working in it, but for the millions who consciously and unconsciously absorb its messages everyday.
Read up on these issues
#MeToo Clashes with ‘Bro Culture’ at Ad Agencies
By Tiffany Hsu, New York Times
Sexism In Advertising: ‘They Talk About Diversity But They Don’t Want Change’
By Rachel Cooke, The Guardian
We Are The 0.1%: Why The Ad World Needs More Female Founders
By Mira Kaddoura, AdAge
Why The Ad Industry’s Diversity Strategy Needs A New Brief
By Rochelle Newman-Carrasco, AdAge
‘I Left And I Shut Up’: Why Women In Advertising Won’t Speak Publicly About Harassment
By Shareen Pathak, Digiday
Advertising Is Still A Boys’ Club
By Lindsay Stein, AdAge
Women In Advertising Reveal Rampant Sexism And Macho Culture
By Rob Davies, The Guardian
For Women In Advertising, It’s Still A ‘Mad Men’ World
By Sydney Ember, The New York Times
Why The Picture Of Diversity On Madison Avenue Is So Murky
By Nathalie Tadena, The Wall Street Journal
“Leaders within agencies pat themselves on the back for baby steps like increasing paid time off for new moms even while female employees make half of what their male colleagues earn. Advertising gets away with these warm and fuzzy gestures in part because it’s not being penalized for continuing with the status quo. Women who start agencies can change that. We need more of them. By definition, women who start agencies are iconoclasts. We’re doing something radically different than the industry standard. Brands should be clamoring for agencies like ours, which aren’t tied down by a traditional shop’s bureaucracy and politics.” — Mira Kaddoura