Category: OMD Life

Saracen Media was registered as a company on the 9th of July 2001 but only began operations on October 1st 2002. The company was the brainchild of four founding partners who had all worked for multi-national advertising agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather, McCann Erickson, and TBWA, previously. The dream of the founders was to establish a local media agency that would compete with the global agency groups in the area of media planning and buying, and elevate it beyond a subordinate role to the creative field, where a lot more emphasis was laid in selecting an agency, yet over 60% of budgets went into the media that connected customers with the creative message.

The founders were also convinced that the economic fortunes of the country were headed for a turnaround with the imminent election of Mwai Kibaki whom the founders held in high regard as an economist with great experience in running the fiscal side of the country.

On opening it’s doors for the first time, the agency acquired an additional 3 employees, (inherited from the previous owner of the offices who gave Saracen a major break in letting the company have a fully furnished and partitioned office in the then Mobil Plaza in Muthaiga, for a staggered payment plan over 3 years) which brought the total staff complement to 7. 

In the first full year of operation 2003 the company achieved a turnover of Kshs 13.4 Million but a loss of Kshs 730k, and the operations were fully funded by the savings of the founders. In 2004 the company’s turnover rose to 24.1M and posted it’s first modest profit of Kshs 347k. 

The founders who had all risen to the top in their field of Media Planning and Buying believed that this skill when properly deployed would benefit companies that advertised immensely, because the return on investment that proper planning media could generate was in the average region of 1:3 i.e for every shilling spent on media, the company could get a revenue of 3 shillings, and this was a global average bench mark established by the Journal of advertising research. The partners then set about educating the market on the value of media planning through presentations, and one on one interactions.

In 2005 the partners realized that to excel in this field there was a great need to tap into the vast R&D budgets of global media agency networks that went into developing insights and tools for superior results for clients. A search then commenced, and the partners wrote to 4 global groups Interpublic, Publicis, Aegis, and Omnicom, of these only Omnicom responded in the affirmative, and an assessment was conducted by the head of Omnicom agencies in Africa, after which he gave a go ahead for an affiliation. This was the preferred arrangement as an affiliation was based on a fixed fee, and gave the company access to all the tools, research, and global clients of the network without ceding equity. This is when the agency appended OMD to the Saracen name. www.omd.com 

The agency then went on to record a number of first and achievements among them, being the first agency to convince parastatals and government bodies to separate creative and media pitches, previously these had always been bundled together, but from the efforts outlined in a previous paragraph this came to be standard practice in the industry in Kenya. In 2006 the agency was also the first media specialist to be admitted to the Association of Practitioners in Advertising, which had previously only admitted “Full service” agencies (Agencies with Creative, media, and client service). 

In 2007 the agency set up an office in Uganda, and one of the founding partners moved to Uganda to grow the business there, and in that year the company in Kenya posted a turnover of Kshs 180M with a Kshs 1M profit, and a staff complement of 18. 

In 2008 the company entered the inaugural “Top 100 Midsized companies in Kenya” survey run by KPMG and ranked number 17. In this same year, the company started another media agency named Saracen PHD www.phdmedia.com to handle conflicting clients as well as compete for pitches in areas Saracen OMD could not. At this time Saracen OMD’s turnover was Kshs 279M.

The companies continued on a growth trajectory, and in 2011 established an office in Tanzania named Olaari Saracen OMD as the rules in Tanzania required a local partner in order to register the business. Tanzania was also slow in establishment due to the challenging operating environment for a Kenyan company, prior to finding a right fit in a partner.

By 2012 the staff complement across East Africa had grown to 34, and combined company turnover rose to over 1 Billion Kshs for the first time and the company was recognized by the Top 100 companies survey as members of Club 101, reserved for companies that cross the 1 Billion mark from within the ranks of survey members. The company was also appointed the regional hub for Omnicom media group agencies in East Africa, the other hubs being Lagos for West Africa, and Johannesburg for Southern Africa.

There followed a period of ebb and flow of turnover between 2013 and 2016, though profitability remained pretty stable, until 2017 when the company’s turnover crossed Kshs 2 Billion and Saracen became the 2nd largest agency in the East Africa region in terms of turnover.The companies held at this level until 2020 when the pandemic hit the advertising sector very hard and turnover dropped by 58%. 

In terms of culture, the founders were very deliberate about the kind of culture they wanted to create, having worked at different agencies and seeing the best and worst of the different cultures. They deliberately set out to ensure the following:

• A collegial environment where co-workers are supportive, and foster a familial bond
• No office politics
• Open door policy by senior management
• Constant learning embedded into everyone’s KPI’s
• A sense of fun and enjoyment at work.
• Excellence in the media craft.

Communication internally has evolved significantly since the advent of the pandemic, where previously staff meetings, reviews, and celebrations were the key means of disseminating important information and updates, this has now mainly moved to Microsoft Teams where we have introduced both work and social chats such as book clubs, and information sharing sessions in addition to the normal work sessions and chats. The company also had a bar on premise with games such as pool and foosball and this greatly fostered after work interaction, but this has been closed due to the pandemic.

Virtual town halls are now held every 8 weeks to update the entire region on all matters important to them, and since all are on the same Teams platform, we have seen collaboration levels increase markedly as well as online learning.

The company is currently in the middle of a transformation, to keep ahead of the transformations that have been accelerated by the pandemic and how people are now interacting with different media. The transformation seeks to deduce and incorporate the critical skills and knowledge that will be required of agencies into the future.

The founder’s profiles are:

Lenny Nganga – https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenny-nganga-5160071/ 

George Wanjohi – https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-wanjohi-966ba74/ 

Sammy Thuo – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sammy-t-87b0021/ 

“Talk is cheap!” What are companies tangibly actioning to ensure a workplace culture of diversity, inclusion and safety?

Diversity is a hot topic. Everywhere you look, someone is talking about diversity and how it impacts the bottom line. But how many companies are talking about it because they feel they should? Because RFIs are now asking for diversity figures? Because they don’t want to be left behind? According to Mark Oben-Pepra, Managing Partner at OMD EMEA, the number one reason you should be cultivating a culture of inclusion in the workplace is because it’s the right thing to do.

Speaking to DMEXCO TV following an appearance on the Congress Stage at the global digital marketing expo & conference which took place in Cologne this week, Oben-Pepra said; “I think a lot of companies at the moment are talking about this because they feel it should be spoken about, it’s a fashionable topic right now and I think there are quite a lot of superficial motivations that lead a lot of companies to talk about this topic.” Awareness is leading to action though he added; “Encouragingly you are seeing a lot more conversations around concrete actions. Talk is cheap, it’s great that you can talk about it and have a vision and a perspective, but more importantly, so what. What are the key steps you are taking to turn this into action?”

Earlier in the day, Open-Pepra joined Virginia Bastian, Group Manager HR at Nestlé, Sarah Bernuit, European Leader at IBM iX and Lisa Utzschneider, CEO at IAS in a panel moderated by the power-house that is CEO and Founder of The Female Quotient, Shelley Zalis, to discuss gender equality in the technological world, but it soon became clear the panel felt equality encompassed more than gender alone.

Speaking about diversity as a whole, Bernuit explained: “Diversity is bringing a different set of people to the party, inclusion is making sure everyone dances”. The panel was in unanimous agreement that the culture of inclusion needs to be led from the top down “It is not a tick-box, everyone needs to be held accountable” said Bernuit with Bastian adding “You have to build the process from many places, you have to start at the top and have clear guidelines and values. Once you have a framework, you can build upon it. We have diverse consumers we are talking to, so we need to have diversity in the workplace to address that”. Oben-Pepra added from a media standpoint, “Seeing yourself reflected in the media is so important. Seeing different age profiles and seeing that all sectors are accessible is crucial”.

Oben-Pepra went on to talk about being mindful of tokenism and ensuring you don’t start to steer towards positive discrimination. At OMD EMEA, a steering group has been formed to ensure this doesn’t happen. RED, an acronym for Recruitment, Engagement and Development, ensures inclusion is felt from the moment someone applies to join OMD EMEA, through using software to ensure job specs use inclusive and unbiased language, through to celebrating different cultures and international days of celebration, through to ongoing training in bias management and beyond.

Oben-Pepra was clear though “As OMD EMEA we are doing some fantastic work, but we by no means have all of the answers”.

Everyone is clear though, the more the topic of equality, inclusion and workplace safety is discussed and the more education there is around diversity for good in the workplace, the more we will see positive changes each and every day.

You can watch Mark Oben-Pepra’s interview in full on YouTube now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o4OffK5PyQ

“Talk is cheap!” What are companies tangibly actioning to ensure a workplace culture of diversity, inclusion and safety?

Diversity is a hot topic. Everywhere you look, someone is talking about diversity and how it impacts the bottom line. But how many companies are talking about it because they feel they should? Because RFIs are now asking for diversity figures? Because they don’t want to be left behind? According to Mark Oben-Pepra, Managing Partner at OMD EMEA, the number one reason you should be cultivating a culture of inclusion in the workplace is because it’s the right thing to do.

Speaking to DMEXCO TV following an appearance on the Congress Stage at the global digital marketing expo & conference which took place in Cologne this week, Oben-Pepra said; “I think a lot of companies at the moment are talking about this because they feel it should be spoken about, it’s a fashionable topic right now and I think there are quite a lot of superficial motivations that lead a lot of companies to talk about this topic.” Awareness is leading to action though he added; “Encouragingly you are seeing a lot more conversations around concrete actions. Talk is cheap, it’s great that you can talk about it and have a vision and a perspective, but more importantly, so what. What are the key steps you are taking to turn this into action?”

Earlier in the day, Open-Pepra joined Virginia Bastian, Group Manager HR at Nestlé, Sarah Bernuit, European Leader at IBM iX and Lisa Utzschneider, CEO at IAS in a panel moderated by the power-house that is CEO and Founder of The Female Quotient, Shelley Zalis, to discuss gender equality in the technological world, but it soon became clear the panel felt equality encompassed more than gender alone.

Speaking about diversity as a whole, Bernuit explained: “Diversity is bringing a different set of people to the party, inclusion is making sure everyone dances”. The panel was in unanimous agreement that the culture of inclusion needs to be led from the top down “It is not a tick-box, everyone needs to be held accountable” said Bernuit with Bastian adding “You have to build the process from many places, you have to start at the top and have clear guidelines and values. Once you have a framework, you can build upon it. We have diverse consumers we are talking to, so we need to have diversity in the workplace to address that”. Oben-Pepra added from a media standpoint, “Seeing yourself reflected in the media is so important. Seeing different age profiles and seeing that all sectors are accessible is crucial”.

Oben-Pepra went on to talk about being mindful of tokenism and ensuring you don’t start to steer towards positive discrimination. At OMD EMEA, a steering group has been formed to ensure this doesn’t happen. RED, an acronym for Recruitment, Engagement and Development, ensures inclusion is felt from the moment someone applies to join OMD EMEA, through using software to ensure job specs use inclusive and unbiased language, through to celebrating different cultures and international days of celebration, through to ongoing training in bias management and beyond.

Oben-Pepra was clear though “As OMD EMEA we are doing some fantastic work, but we by no means have all of the answers”.

Everyone is clear though, the more the topic of equality, inclusion and workplace safety is discussed and the more education there is around diversity for good in the workplace, the more we will see positive changes each and every day.

You can watch Mark Oben-Pepra’s interview in full on YouTube now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o4OffK5PyQ

Last week, we had the honour of attending the Omniwomen UK + Allies Basecamp event presented by Valerie Van den Bossche – a global consultant and facilitator of cultural and organisational change. The two-hour highly engaging and interactive session brought about 30 enthusiastic people together to discuss the underlying issues around Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), and how organisations can enhance awareness on these issues to ensure psychologically safer environments.

D&I has been a fashionable topic of discussion in the past few years and Valerie spoke with passion about the importance of taking the mantle and driving real change. Specific focus was on the topic of unconscious biases and psychological safety, which are unsurprisingly fundamental issues that are often undermined and ignored in organisations. One key takeaway was that recognizing the lack of knowledge on D&I and the importance of being conscious of biases is the first crucial step to create positive change in all of our workplaces.

Discussion of unconscious bias is important to raise awareness but even further, we need strategies to help tackle the crippling effect it can have on the development of diverse talent at work. Over the past 3 months, we have taken many of our teams through a comprehensive unconscious bias training and this will continue late into the summer. But there are questions we can all start asking ourselves today, to try and be better aware of our innate, unconscious biases. For example, thinking about how teams behave in meetings (who tends to get interrupted the most and by who?) and looking at confirmation bias that easily derails objectivity in our analysis of marketing data (are we genuinely open to insight? Or are we looking for data to prove a stereotype or preconception?) Biases are natural, omnipresent and not always helpful!

Here at OMD EMEA we are committed to maintain an inclusive culture that enables diverse talent to make Better decisions, faster for our clients. If you’re interested in getting in touch, check out our live jobs on OMD EMEA’s LinkedIn.

Last week, we had the honour of attending the Omniwomen UK + Allies Basecamp event presented by Valerie Van den Bossche – a global consultant and facilitator of cultural and organisational change. The two-hour highly engaging and interactive session brought about 30 enthusiastic people together to discuss the underlying issues around Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), and how organisations can enhance awareness on these issues to ensure psychologically safer environments.

D&I has been a fashionable topic of discussion in the past few years and Valerie spoke with passion about the importance of taking the mantle and driving real change. Specific focus was on the topic of unconscious biases and psychological safety, which are unsurprisingly fundamental issues that are often undermined and ignored in organisations. One key takeaway was that recognizing the lack of knowledge on D&I and the importance of being conscious of biases is the first crucial step to create positive change in all of our workplaces.

Discussion of unconscious bias is important to raise awareness but even further, we need strategies to help tackle the crippling effect it can have on the development of diverse talent at work. Over the past 3 months, we have taken many of our teams through a comprehensive unconscious bias training and this will continue late into the summer. But there are questions we can all start asking ourselves today, to try and be better aware of our innate, unconscious biases. For example, thinking about how teams behave in meetings (who tends to get interrupted the most and by who?) and looking at confirmation bias that easily derails objectivity in our analysis of marketing data (are we genuinely open to insight? Or are we looking for data to prove a stereotype or preconception?) Biases are natural, omnipresent and not always helpful!

Here at OMD EMEA we are committed to maintain an inclusive culture that enables diverse talent to make Better decisions, faster for our clients. If you’re interested in getting in touch, check out our live jobs on OMD EMEA’s LinkedIn.

To encourage the next generation of creative stars under 30, Cannes Lions holds an official Young Lions program where the stars go head-to-head. We spoke to Tobi Babalola from MediaReach OMD Nigeria about his experience as a finalist. Watch our video interview with Tobi here.

My expectations were high, yet I did not know what to expect from the festival. As the days drew closer, my google searches on past Cannes Lions intensified. I must confess that no article or video I saw came close to preparing me for the experience that I had ahead of me.

The Competition – We were briefed by the client on the first day of the festival. We had 24hrs to brainstorm and another 11hours to work on the brief. The media competition was exciting, it was evident that all teams were there to put in their absolute best. You could almost hear the heartbeat of enthusiastic competitors. The competition area had an aura of its own. It was an aura that pushed you to do more, to think, think and think again. When teams submitted their works, the collective relief everyone felt was palpable. So much intense work had been done and there was exhaustion on everyone’s faces. The competition ended on the third day of the festival with our various presentations and announcement of the winners. Now it was time to enjoy other parts of the festival.

The Sessions – Mind blowing and insightful are two words that come to mind. Regardless of your chosen interest, there were sessions that catered to everyone. As a curious creative media strategist, I was especially interested in the discussions that touched on creativity and use of data. One that stood out for me was ‘The Banned Ad 1,000,000 People Signed A Petition To See’ facilitated by Hermeti Balarin, Katie Mackay-Sinclair and John Sauve. The team discussed how to emphasize the power of a creative campaign and how many organic impressions campaigns of this kind generate. Although, I do not agree on the existence of an African story, I also really enjoyed ‘The Authentic African Story’ facilitated by Steave Babaeko, Sandra Iyawa, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde and Shukri Toefy. I believe Africans are typically characterized by the uniqueness of their diverse culture and categorizing the whole of Africa under a story just does not do adequate justice to the ‘African Story’.

The Festival of Brands – It was downright impossible to get enough of brands at the Festival of Creativity. From Facebook, Google, YouTube, Pinterest, Activision, Unity, Spotify and IBM to name a few. Apart from the free food and drinks available at the beaches taken up by the brands, there was enough memorabilia to go around all visitors. I got a free customized cup from Unity and IBM put my picture up on the LED screen in front of the Carlton Hotel – this was definitely a highlight of my experience at the festival. I mean, my handsome face on a billboard in France is not something that happens often. I promptly took a picture of it and updated my fans back in Nigeria! There were lots of interesting activitations and discussions at the brand beach hubs as well.

The Parties – While it was serious business at the brand hubs during the day, it was quite the opposite at night. We went from one brand party to another through the night every night. Parties were hosted by Google, Facebook and Spotify amongst others and featured music celebrities like Nas, Ciara, Wyclef and more. Every night was a blast! The festival also ended with a Young Lions closing party.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in my opinion should be on the bucket list for every marketing professional. Being at the festival opens your mind to a whole lot of creativity – It’s like lighting a fuse in your brain, bright enough to last a whole year. It was a great experience for me and I hope I have another chance to attend in the future!

Carly Quigley, Strategy Director OMD EMEA, Curtis Tracey & Leah Levenson, Associate Directors, Client services, talk us through the Omniwomen UK + Allies summit highlights.

We were extremely excited about attending the Omniwomen UK + Allies Summit on International Women’s Day. Although we had heard great things, we were blown away by the scale and quality of the day, from the speakers to the breakout sessions and the space itself, it was a really amazing and inspiring day to a be part of. 

This year, the event was hosted by Ali Gee (Deputy CEO & Senior Partner FleishmanHillard Fishburn) and Victoria Buchanan (Executive Creative Director Tribal DDB), who started the day by reminding us why we were all in county hall, where we were as a business and the strides we still needed to make. It was clear that Omnicom UK is actually doing pretty well from a gender equality perspective, 50% of leadership roles are held by women. However there are of course nuances when you break this down and we heard that only 39% of Senior creative positions are held by women, down by 6% – this is an industry wide problem.

What surprised and also excited us the most about the day was the theme of ‘Diverse Paths To Leadership’. This meant that although there was a strong focus on gender equality, we also explored the full spectrum of diversity throughout the day, opening up a much broader conversation. Within this theme we heard from a range of inspirational colleagues, politicians, CEO’s and even a poet who shared their stories and interpretation of ‘diverse paths to leadership’. It was also very powerful to have ‘allies’ attending the day, men from across the business who need to be involved in these conversation as much as the women who are normally at the forefront of them.

There were a few key themes that came up consistently throughout the day which we would love to share and hopefully provide the basis of the work we can do within OMD EMEA to celebrate diverse paths to leadership.

Share the Power/Make Space: This theme really made an impact, perhaps because of the way it framed the topic of inclusion, but also because it offers a tangible action we can all take. Ruth Hunt (Chief Executive of Stonewall) make a compelling point about understanding the power balance of any situation you find yourself in. Sometimes you will have the power (possibly due to your position, gender, ethnicity) and sometimes you will have less power or be powerless. It is our responsibility as leaders, when we recognise we have the power, to think about how you use and share it to boost others who have less. If you are someone that has the power or privilege in the first place, sharing that out will not diminish your own standing, but it will help push equality and diversity. Interestingly both Ruth Hunt and Sophie Walker (Former Leader of the Women’s Equality Party) announced on stage their decision to step back from their position of power and leadership. They said they were passing their power to the next generation of representatives to allow the space for new ideas and fresh ways of thinking.

The importance of being our full selves: Throughout the talks and panels covering many forms of diversity and inclusion, the idea of being able to show up fully at work as yourself came up continuously.  In the ‘Breaking The Silence’ panel discussion, people from within and outside our company who have experienced mental health problems bravely and candidly spoke about how they have adapted their lifestyle and working practices to make sure they effectively protect their mental health and show up in the best way possible at work and at home. In the Neurodiversity breakout session, colleagues from across Omnicom talked about how their neurodiversities, such as Dyslexia and Autism are a strength at work in many ways, but also mean some things need to be adapted so they can work most effectively. During the panel discussion ‘Is Diverse Leadership That Difficult?’, Leyya Sattar and Roshni Goyate (Co-founders of The Other Box) highlighted the fact that having diversity in a company is not enough if it’s simply tokenism, everyone needs to be able to be fully themselves and feel they can speak up if we are really going to have diversity living up to its true meaning.

Allies and Privilege: As an ally, our attendance was just as important as the rest of the diverse group.  There was a sentiment of inclusion and it was clear that change will only come through working together.  Ian Crocombe (Director of Creative Shop at FB and Board Member of Creative Equals) posed a question to the few men in the room of how they felt on the day – an equal feeling of slightly uncomfortable and vulnerable brought the point into perspective as a day in the life of minority or under appreciated  groups. His inspirational talk put privilege into perspective for those who have always had it, whereas it is not always clear until you understand the challenges that are presented with being a minority. His discussion provided clear steps for our organization’s ally leadership to act upon;

1. Allies need to stand up for others and proactively promote diversity
2. We need to design our agency for inclusion; from recruitment to every day workplace environment
3. Feedback is a gift – please speak up when something doesn’t feel right – consider reverse appraisals – leaders need to be open to other perspectives

What is important is challenging the status quo and breaking convention.  Organizations are designed for the majority; leaving minority groups forced to be ‘resilient’ and adapting within that system. OMD and our clients can benefit from having different perspectives and POVs, so why not give everyone a voice? An ally can spend their privilege on others to make a team succeed rather than spend it on themselves, setting a good example for the overall environment and the leaders of tomorrow.  That is why diverse leadership is important, diversity is about understanding everyone is 100% human.

Carly Quigley, Strategy Director OMD EMEA, Curtis Tracey & Leah Levenson, Associate Directors, Client services, talk us through the Omniwomen UK + Allies summit highlights.

We were extremely excited about attending the Omniwomen UK + Allies Summit on International Women’s Day. Although we had heard great things, we were blown away by the scale and quality of the day, from the speakers to the breakout sessions and the space itself, it was a really amazing and inspiring day to a be part of. 

This year, the event was hosted by Ali Gee (Deputy CEO & Senior Partner FleishmanHillard Fishburn) and Victoria Buchanan (Executive Creative Director Tribal DDB), who started the day by reminding us why we were all in county hall, where we were as a business and the strides we still needed to make. It was clear that Omnicom UK is actually doing pretty well from a gender equality perspective, 50% of leadership roles are held by women. However there are of course nuances when you break this down and we heard that only 39% of Senior creative positions are held by women, down by 6% – this is an industry wide problem.

What surprised and also excited us the most about the day was the theme of ‘Diverse Paths To Leadership’. This meant that although there was a strong focus on gender equality, we also explored the full spectrum of diversity throughout the day, opening up a much broader conversation. Within this theme we heard from a range of inspirational colleagues, politicians, CEO’s and even a poet who shared their stories and interpretation of ‘diverse paths to leadership’. It was also very powerful to have ‘allies’ attending the day, men from across the business who need to be involved in these conversation as much as the women who are normally at the forefront of them.

There were a few key themes that came up consistently throughout the day which we would love to share and hopefully provide the basis of the work we can do within OMD EMEA to celebrate diverse paths to leadership.

Share the Power/Make Space: This theme really made an impact, perhaps because of the way it framed the topic of inclusion, but also because it offers a tangible action we can all take. Ruth Hunt (Chief Executive of Stonewall) make a compelling point about understanding the power balance of any situation you find yourself in. Sometimes you will have the power (possibly due to your position, gender, ethnicity) and sometimes you will have less power or be powerless. It is our responsibility as leaders, when we recognise we have the power, to think about how you use and share it to boost others who have less. If you are someone that has the power or privilege in the first place, sharing that out will not diminish your own standing, but it will help push equality and diversity. Interestingly both Ruth Hunt and Sophie Walker (Former Leader of the Women’s Equality Party) announced on stage their decision to step back from their position of power and leadership. They said they were passing their power to the next generation of representatives to allow the space for new ideas and fresh ways of thinking.

The importance of being our full selves: Throughout the talks and panels covering many forms of diversity and inclusion, the idea of being able to show up fully at work as yourself came up continuously.  In the ‘Breaking The Silence’ panel discussion, people from within and outside our company who have experienced mental health problems bravely and candidly spoke about how they have adapted their lifestyle and working practices to make sure they effectively protect their mental health and show up in the best way possible at work and at home. In the Neurodiversity breakout session, colleagues from across Omnicom talked about how their neurodiversities, such as Dyslexia and Autism are a strength at work in many ways, but also mean some things need to be adapted so they can work most effectively. During the panel discussion ‘Is Diverse Leadership That Difficult?’, Leyya Sattar and Roshni Goyate (Co-founders of The Other Box) highlighted the fact that having diversity in a company is not enough if it’s simply tokenism, everyone needs to be able to be fully themselves and feel they can speak up if we are really going to have diversity living up to its true meaning.

Allies and Privilege: As an ally, our attendance was just as important as the rest of the diverse group.  There was a sentiment of inclusion and it was clear that change will only come through working together.  Ian Crocombe (Director of Creative Shop at FB and Board Member of Creative Equals) posed a question to the few men in the room of how they felt on the day – an equal feeling of slightly uncomfortable and vulnerable brought the point into perspective as a day in the life of minority or under appreciated  groups. His inspirational talk put privilege into perspective for those who have always had it, whereas it is not always clear until you understand the challenges that are presented with being a minority. His discussion provided clear steps for our organization’s ally leadership to act upon;

1. Allies need to stand up for others and proactively promote diversity
2. We need to design our agency for inclusion; from recruitment to every day workplace environment
3. Feedback is a gift – please speak up when something doesn’t feel right – consider reverse appraisals – leaders need to be open to other perspectives

What is important is challenging the status quo and breaking convention.  Organizations are designed for the majority; leaving minority groups forced to be ‘resilient’ and adapting within that system. OMD and our clients can benefit from having different perspectives and POVs, so why not give everyone a voice? An ally can spend their privilege on others to make a team succeed rather than spend it on themselves, setting a good example for the overall environment and the leaders of tomorrow.  That is why diverse leadership is important, diversity is about understanding everyone is 100% human.

Last Wednesday evening saw the launch of a new, and I think a rather brilliant initiative by Victoria Ryan, Chair of the IAA Young Professionals Committee. The first of the IAA’s Learning and Drinks evenings. For the audience, of some 40 young professionals, the topic of ‘Gender in Media’ clearly resonated, but so did the opportunity to learn something which would enhance careers.

Rather than making it a moaning session or rehashing the data from media’s gender pay gap, we wanted this to be about how women, men and the industry as a whole can move forward. The panel, which I was honoured to chair, was made up of experts from across the media and marketing industry including; Fran Cowan, Chief Marketing Officer at Inskin Media and VP Marketing at IAA UK, Amy Laurence, Joint Head of Media Investment at Mediacom, Jon Hook, Founder of Mallory Ventures and an expert in gender, leadership and neuroscience in business, Jan Hills, (yes, the name is familiar… she’s my mother!)

Jan and I wrote a book last year on gender in the workplace, Brain Savvy Wo+man, which looks at how women and men can thrive in their career by understanding how the brain works. Everyone at the session received a copy so we now have 40 people set up to manage their career.

We asked the panel to comment on a number of questions including their reaction to the pay gap results, how companies should address the results, their advice to us as individuals and (perhaps most importantly) how we keep the conversation and momentum going so that the results are better in 2018. Our panel had lots of advice, stories, and anecdotes and the audience contributed their own questions too.

My key takeaways were:

1. No one was surprised about the gender pay gap data, but some were outraged, especially about the gap in bonuses paid to men and women in some companies.
2. Companies need to pay more attention to hiring and promoting the best talent irrespective of gender, or any other characteristics. Things like men taking paternity leave and more acceptance of flexible working for everyone will help.
3. Young professionals need to understand the standards expected in a role and do a great job not just seek promotion on a time served bases. The panelists also felt it was important to follow areas of interest and passion not just seek to climb the corporate ladder.
4. Women should not be afraid to state their ambition, engage their boss in a discussion about advancement and seek to be known in the company and the sector.
5. Progress on gender equality will only happen if men are on board and going forward there needs to be a focus on engaging men and helping the current leadership understand what is needed to lead companies in the future. We can’t wait for the current generation to retire. Initiatives like reverse mentoring are powerful tools in helping current leaders.
6. We need to keep the conversation going, be challenging and point to the benefits of a more diverse and inclusive workforce. The companies that make headway on this will reap benefits in terms of reputation, retention of talent and ability to hire the best people.

Considering the above, at OMD EMEA’s headquarters in Kings Cross, we are focusing on four key areas to address these challenges:

1. Bringing a wide range of ‘bigger picture’ culture into our agency through inspiration speakers and thought leadership
2. Creation of a diversity OPCO aiming to inform leadership and bring a broader set of opinions to making decisions and driving change
3. Placing emphasis on Emotional Equality, throughout our business and our individual client teams through new training
4. Keeping ourselves informed and open to change through regular check-ins on our pay gap data, new hiring policies and selection process, while still hiring the best talent

The IAA Young Professionals Committee will be organising more learning and drinks sessions. They are a great benefit and I’d encourage my colleagues to attend future sessions. If you’d like to find out how you can join the next IAA session please contact us at [email protected]

 “It’s not enough to just consume inspiration”

At the end of a day that was inspiring and challenging in equal measure, a delegate and contributor based in New York was asked what Omniwomen meant to her. If there was one comment that summed up the theme of this year’s Omniwomen UK Summit, this was it. To take action. To reach everyone.

Set up to increase the number and influence of female leaders across the network, Omniwomen’s annual summit felt like it took on extra significance this year, against the backdrop of #MeToo, Time’s Up and with the gender pay gap front and centre in the media. In more positive news, it was announced that women now make up 48% of Omnicom UK’s senior management, well ahead of the IPA’s 2020 target of 40%, and the UK industry average of 30% (Campaign/IPA).

Held on International Women’s Day, the annual summit is a chance to hear the personal stories and perspectives of inspiring speakers and industry leaders, debate the big issues, discuss personal experiences amongst peers, and feel part of a powerful and supportive network.

It’s also a catalyst for change that can, and must, benefit everyone.

Inspiring the next generation through a more inclusive style of leadership

The Omnicom CEO Panel, hosted by BBC Newsnight’s Sam McAlister [pictured], brought together some of the network’s most senior leaders. They openly shared their stories, what has shaped their thinking and helped them confront their own biases, and the tangible steps they’ve taken to modernise their company culture and policies.

There was acknowledgement of perception challenges and practical challenges around flexible working as well as hiring and supporting working parents, but we mustn’t shy away from doing the right thing (and potentially losing or missing out on talent) because of short term inconvenience.

The companies that attract and retain the industry’s top talent are actively bringing empathy into company culture and leadership, allowing for different styles and ways of working, and creating respectful and nurturing environments where everyone has a voice.

Bringing men into the conversation

From start to finish, a theme running through this year’s summit was how to include men on the journey. In the words of Shelley Zalis, founder of The Girls Lounge, CEO of The Female Quotient, and general force of nature, we will not “unlock the un-stereotyped mindset” and “write new rules of work” without becoming “we for we”.

Phil Bartlett [pictured], MD of CDM and part of the Omniwomen Committee, spoke with honesty, sensitivity and humour about the male perspective in a talk titled ‘Boys Don’t Cry’. He notes that early conditioning of traditional masculine traits, and how we raise our boys (fostering competitiveness, strength, and resilience, with ‘strong man’ role models) remain prevalent and continue to be valued above all else in the workplace. Leadership should not be about making people feel like they have to behave in a certain way to ‘get on’. He also talked candidly about the challenges men face in participating in the conversation, not always knowing what to say. We must find ways to talk more openly and transparently about experiences and issues with each other.

Confronting our biases: the diversity ambition vs. the reality

Diversity. There’s much debate on the need for it, and there’s plenty of data to back up the commercial benefits of it, but policies, ways of working and what we place most value on haven’t quite caught up.

Ruth Hunt, Stonewall’s CEO, had a reality check for this audience. We continue to look for “people who can quickly fit into our systems… [we’re] trying to sell our product and ways of working to people who don’t look or think like us…”. In short, we need to do the groundwork confronting our own biases (be it class, ethnicity, gender, or life stage) and be honest about how these manifest in recruitment, ways of working, leadership structures and remuneration. Eye opening, provocative, and hard to argue with.

#TakeItOn

I left feeling privileged to be part of this network and optimistic about where the future is heading. Turning inspiration into action means momentum over perfection, doing over saying, and bringing new and diverse voices into the conversation to drive change in the workplace. In the closing words of Phil Bartlett, “our time is now so let’s make it count”.