Only 3% of all senior management positions at ad agencies are women.
Yes, only 3%. WOW.
Kat Gordon, the founder of the conference, wonders “why the most powerful consumer segment in the world – women – is not being marketed to from a place of understanding.” While I did not attend this conference, a good friend of mine, Will Burns, president and founder of Ideasicle, an Expert Sourcing company, spoke at it and came away with some really powerful insights.
He later wrote an article for Forbes.com that really got me thinking. Where are all the women? What are we all missing out on by not having more women at those higher levels? How can we get them to stay? How can we get them back? And, most importantly, how can we encourage clients and agencies to recognize their perspective as so unique and powerful that it is at a disservice to their brand that there aren’t more women involved.
I appreciated how Will’s article did not focus on the “boy’s club mentality” that we all hear so much about. Instead it focused on the powerful idea that increasing the amount of women on your team will improve the creative product. With “97% of the sky dark”, clients are missing out on key perspectives. Will closes by agreeing to do his part by lifting the percentage of women in his Ideasicle Expert pool and asks others to do the same.
Please link here to read the full article, it is really eye opening. And, you should consider my perspective. After all, I am a woman.