Diversity declines among US agency leadership

Agency leadership in the US has grown less diverse in the last year, a study from trade body the 4A’s has shown.

Why diversity and inclusion matters

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is not only a moral imperative, but has also been found to deliver enhanced business results. While the ad industry has talked a good game in this area, the hard numbers suggest that there is still considerable room for progress, especially in the upper echelons of agency-land.

Negative leadership trends

The 4A’s surveyed 116 agencies, of which 66% were independent, while 34% were owned by holding companies. It found:

• 90.2% of featured agencies had white ownership or a white chief executive in 2022, up from 73% in 2021.
• Just 0.75% of agencies in the poll, by contrast, were Black-owned or led last year, compared with 5% a year earlier.
• These figures stood at 5.3% and 10% respectively for agency owners or leaders identifying as Hispanic, Latino, Latina or Latinx.
• Similarly, while 12% of agency leaders and owners in 2021 were drawn from the Asian community, that total stood at 1.5% in the 2022 analysis.
• More positively, some 0.75% of agencies to the 2022 study had ownership or leadership that identified as two or more ethnicities, compared with none doing so in 2021.

Building a talent pipeline

• Expanding the analysis to look at all agency staff members, the number of Black employees rose from just under 6.4% to almost 7% year on year.
• Similarly, Asian employee numbers rose from almost 10.9% to approximately 11.3%.
• These figures stood at 9% and 12.4% for members of the Hispanic, Latino, Latina and Latinx community.
• Native American and Pacific Islander employee numbers came in at 0.3% for 2022, while 2.9% of staff identified as two or more ethnicities.
• The total number of white employees fell from just under 70% in 2021 to 64.6% in 2022, according to the analysis.

A growth opportunity

• Tahlisha Williams, evp/talent, equity and learning solutions at the 4A’s, suggested that improved diversity, equity and inclusion represents a clear growth opportunity.
• “The goal of this is to make sure our industry is representative of the communities we serve,” she told Ad Age.
• Marla Kaplowitz, CEO of the 4As, suggested one major step for the industry would be to help under-represented advertising professionals receive the support needed to start new agencies.
• More broadly, she suggested there remained a gap between dialogue and action. “I worry we’re having the same conversation and not moving it forward,” she said.

Sourced from Ad Age