The recent departure of Kevin Roberts from Saatchi & Saatchi has brought into sharp relief the issue of diversity and gender equality in adland. With 78 per cent of local agency leaderships being male, the recent IAPI census underscored that Irish agencies have a distance to go to achieve better equal gender representation on Irish agency boards.
Epsilon Dublin’s recent re-organisation of its leadership team has bucked both the local and global trends through the creation of a senior management team that is mostly female. “We have been refocusing our agency on shaping the future – not only winning a greater share of the creative future for our clients, but ensuring that our teams and talent are reflective of what’s needed now,” country lead Ann McDermott said.
“We believe the future of agencies is defined by diversity. Our leadership team formed organically but upon reflection the fact that we are majority female is incredibly prescient and is a testimony that the adland of the past can change”, she added. Epsilon’s European executive creative director Mark Fiddes said adland is seeing a shift not just in what is created and how it is create, but who is leading the new form of creativity.
“Our Dublin leadership team is reflective of the talent base in our industry,” Fiddes added.
Pictured, left to right: Ann McDermott; Monique DuPlessis, VP, client services; Carly Jenner, HR director; Genevieve Woods, client services director; James Dunne, planning director and Mark Fiddes. Not in picture: Ciara Bailey, client services director.
