Tamara Ingram has been JWT’s new global chairman/CEO for less than a week, but she’s already declared her intentions: diversity is the key word moving forward. In this case she was specifically discussing gender equality, which has of course become a major topic of conversation yet again in the wake of her predecessor Gustavo Martinez’s resignation last Thursday.
At an event in London last night to present and discuss the BBC documentary “Her Story: The Female Revolution,” Ingram said, “diversity and inclusion will be at the top of my agenda … [because] companies don’t value women enough.”
Here’s the trailer for the film, which was a joint production of the BBC and JWT’s Entertainment unit.
According to Brand Republic’s coverage of the event, Ingram elaborated in her comments as part of a panel discussing the film at Picturehouse Central in London’s Piccadily Circus:
“I believe to the core of my being that diversity of people leads to diversity of thinking and diversity of ideas, and unleashing that creativity is very valuable to us. We haven’t got that inclusion in our work place at the moment. I worry about the state of the world today and I feel it’s our duty as a company to change the world and make it a better place, to include all our peoples to make sure we live in a safer world.”
JWT global head of planning Rachel Pashley, who led its efforts on the documentary, also said, “We need to get creatives to think in a more explorative way about women in the world and get clients to think about female capital.”
Ingram and Pashley did not lay out any specifics regarding her plans to change the world and the ad industry for the better…but we assume that we will hear more in the months to come.