A message to the men of the Media Federation
It’s a disgrace that media agency bosses are all men and their assistants are all women, argues ZO boss Ian Perrin.
Thanks to Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer, the issue of women in leadership has recently received a great deal of global coverage.
Closer to home, the debate is just as pertinent, with only seven female executives filling the role of CEO in ASX 200 companies. When it comes to our industry, unfortunately, things are even worse.
I remember moving back to media agency side 18 months ago and receiving my first email from the Media Federation. It was addressed to all of the agency CEOs and copied their executive assistants.
The fact that all the of the former group were men and all the latter group were women put a smile on my face. But it shouldn’t have, because as the leaders of the industry we should be downright ashamed of ourselves that not one single media agency CEO is a woman (although to be fair to the MFA, they have recently appointed a female CEO).
Come to think of it, the only female creative agency CEO that I am aware of is the brilliant Jo Pollard at Publicis Mojo. So why are there not more female CEOs in our industry?
And before I move on, most male CEOs will dodge the question with the argument that they have a very diversified executive group. ZO Australia do ourselves, with two of the managing directors reporting into me being female, and our executive team split half way down the middle. If you looked at cultural diversity, we would probably be considered market leading. But it doesn’t escape the fact that I am a man and when new agencies choose a CEO, they go with middle- (in some cases old) aged fellas.
So is Australia guilty of not moving with the times? We have a female PM, so it doesn’t feel like that this is the case. Are women not suited to the perceived cut throat negotiating world of modern media? Given the success of Annie Parsons (formerly at Mediacom) and Belinda Rowe (formerly at ZO), that definitely isn’t the case.
Are there not enough capable female executives in the media world? Not on your nelly. If I were to hire a new managing director in Sydney tomorrow, at least seven of the 10 candidates I have on my list are female. So why is it then?
Given that I don’t have the answers probably makes me part of the problem. If male CEOs such as myself can’t understand the cause of this issue, then there is little chance of us being part of the solution. So I would love to know why.
Feel free to email me on ian.perrin@zenithoptimedia.com.au or simply state your opinions below, and I will collate the opinions and present them to the men of the MFA. It’s a very small start to fixing the problem, but hopefully one that will grow.
- Ian Perrin is CEO of ZO
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Yes, Australia is behind the times. With everything. Wait until the Baby boomers retire, then we’ll see a bunch of change, including women in leadership positions.
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Great article Ian. Advertising in Australia is absolutely guilty of creating a “boys club,” perpetuated by the Singos of the world. My suspicion is that women have no desire to engage in the ego driven politics that appears far too often in the advertising arena. But that is the easy way out. The industry needs to change dramatically, and talent needs to be to given the opportunity to rise to the top irrespective of gender. At the moment, the irrefutable facts indicate this isn’t the case.
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As a baby boomer, I resent the above statement. In fact I’d be outraged if I wasn’t down at my beach house drinking a really nice Pinot Gris.
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“Are there not enough capable female executives in the media world? Not on your nelly.”
I’m glad somebody is talking about it from this angle. Threads about women & leadership always end up with shrieking comments along the lines of “whatever happened to merit based appointments!”, “I’m a woman and I don’t want to get a job just because I’m a woman!”, blah de blah.
Which all miss the point that if you think we currently have merit based appointments, then you must also think that there is only a tiny percentage of women good enough to do the top jobs. Similar to you Ian, I don’t really understand why it keeps happening either and I’d like to.
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This might have something to do with it!
http://www.news.com.au/opinion.....6600693945
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The only difference between men and women in the workforce is pay rates.
As a woman I find talk of this “issue” infuriating. Trying to point out that we are equal and capable makes us be seen as different and therefore as unequal!
While there may be a minuscule proportion of the workforce (who would be pretty old and on their way out) who don’t believe women can be in management or leadership roles I do not believe there is such a thing as ‘the glass ceiling’ anymore or people actively choosing men over women for jobs.
These efforts to highlight how women are being left behind etc, by men and women alike, are what makes women seem unequal!! You don’t see articles about how hospitals are choosing female over male nurses or special conferences about mens roles in particular sectors with men talking about how inspirational each other are and how they’re breaking social stereotypes . You may well say you don’t see those things because it is felt that there is no need for them because men have opportunities etc, but so do women!
Next thing you know there will be certain positions set aside for only female candidates -.-.
If a man and I were to apply for the same job and he got it over me I would not even entertain a thought other than that he was better qualified for it.
Don’t let someones gender even come into it when you hire them- don’t hire a woman because you feel you ought to, hire the best person for the job!
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Thanks Ian for your thoughts.
If individuals want to be part of the solution, they can support groups such as SheSays (I help to run this in Sydney) through sponsorship, providing venues, offering yourself as a speaker etc. If you are a women who is keen to advance your career or are able to mentor others come to some of our events: http://weareshesays.com/category/events
As a group we want to encourage advancement in our industry at all levels, with the hope that one day we will have women well represented in our industry across all disciplines and levels. We don’t want our events to be a beat up on men, but a celebration of great female talent!
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As a young female exec it’s strange to find yourself in a minority. For what it’s worth coming from an ex-adland person, I think there’s two major aspects that are never really mentioned in these types of discussions (not the only two, but big ones). No, they’re not personal examples, and yes they are huge generalisations.
Firstly, men are more readily forgiven for their mistakes in their workplace. As we grow into senior levels all execs make mistakes. Mistakes with internal politics, mistakes with clients or projects, or just personal mistakes. It seems that men are more readily forgiven their foilbles and excused as “learning” or “something we’ve all done” where as women are held to ransom over their mistakes, reminded at every other moment by seniors that second guess every subsquent decision or motive.
Secondly, women don’t handle their careers particularly well. Look at the top of any company in the world and there are only four or five jobs – CEO, CFO, CHR, COO (sometimes broken up). That’s it. If you’re not aiming for one of those, choosing your study, choosing your networks and networking. making eveything you do in your career about building your case for one of those positons, then you probably won’t get one. Or even near one.
There’s most liekly some deep seeded psych stuff at play too around the industry’s motivation to change and aversion to risk given that what it’s used to works so well.
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Have to say I agree with Ella and more often than not it’s about the best person for the job. In the situations where a male, or female, is preferred for a CEO role, it’s often to do with who the business feels would be a better fit with the main client/s. If there were more women in leadership roles client side, the agencies would likely follow suit.
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Had a job once where CEO was outraged when Creative D appointed female graphics and content team. He called us ‘It’ and asked us to put our ideas under his door!
He left, we stayed and the Graphics ‘It’,became Creative Director. She was simply the best at it all.
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Sorry to disappoint you Ella, but whether done consciously or sub-consciously, men are chosen over women all the time.
A senior female exec (and a good friend of mine) was recently told by a recruiter that ‘agencies aren’t hiring women in management at the moment’. Simple and as blatant as that. I think some agencies see senior women as some kind of experiment and if they’ve had one bad experience, they tar the whole gender with that brush.
There are studies that show that a CV with a woman’s name is rejected while the same CV with a man’s name gets an interview. There are studies that show that male bosses view women through the lens by which they chose their wives… i.e. if their wife is a sweet, contented homemaker then that is how they sub-consciously prefer women to behave. I don’t recall ever being asked if I minded a male boss…but I do recall male candidates being asked if they minded a female boss (i.e. me). Women get asked all the time how they’re going to manage if one of the kids gets sick or they have to go on a business trip. How often are senior male executives asked the same?
Part of the problem in my opinion, is that in terms of recruitment, we’re not that professional as an industry. We need to smarten up, and hire experts who know how do to this the right way (the wrong way being at the golf course or a boozy lunch, or not checking references and credentials which happens ALL THE TIME).
I recently discovered an ex-colleague has credited himself with a significant award that was given for my work. I’m not even sure he was at the same agency at the time. Does anyone check that stuff?
Sheryl Sandberg’s book makes some good points about women not taking credit for themselves. Women say ‘my team won an award’ when men are comfortable taking all the credit. Men apply for promotions and jobs that they are not fully qualified for, and women hold back. Some female mentors and rolemodels who’ve overcome these issues would be nice. I wonder which of the CEOs (beyond Ian) has the cajones to step up first?
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The oft cited statistic is that men don’t really care who is their boss, but women prefer it to be a man. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....54080.html
http://www.gallup.com/poll/149.....rence.aspx
http://www.fairplace.com/news/.....bosses.php
Interesting to note that the more representation that women have in government, then the more likely that that country is to have women CEO’s – http://eprints.qut.edu.au/6803/1/6803.pdf “Female Presence on Corporate Boards:
A Multi-Country Study of Environmental Context ”
However maybe it’s due to lack of ambition – http://www.slate.com/articles/.....power.html
or maybe just lower ambition due to the perception of prejudice? Or even that they might not want to be CEOs.
http://www.i-l-m.com/downloads.....t_0211.pdf
i think this last point is crucial – is it worth asking the people in your organisation if they actually would *like* to be a CEO?
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“So why are there not more female CEOs in our industry?”
Ian – You are part of the problem. Why dont you move aside and let one of your 2 female managing directors take over.
If you wont do that, I guess you’ve answered your own question then.
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I wonder how many men, if any, applied for those executive assistant roles that you found so amusing.
The gender imbalance needs to focus on the bottom as well, not just the top. Hiring more male support staff might help to breed a new generation of workers that see each other as truly equal.
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There are plenty of bright Baby-booming women who never got a look in on top jobs either. This sort of thing is utter rot and is akin to rubbing noses in shit.
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thanks for calling it Ian. sounds like we won’t have a female PM for much longer.
However, let’s not make this a male problem.
Women are as responsible as men for taking on leadership roles – as a femaie entrepreneur I have observed that many, many women have confidence issues that they fail to identify within themselves. Nobody is going to promote a talented and highly skilled female leader lacking confidence.
In my experience, they also largely accept the male leadership culture and thus fail to challenge it. Yes, those who challenge it get penalised to a degree, but without female buy in for change, things will never change.
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Very pleased to see this issue being raised and debated – thank you Ian.
Mid last year I launched a new Q&A series ‘Women in Media’ where I’ve profiled several well known industry women asking them to share views and comments on this very issue – including a question “What can be done to better support women in our industry now?”. I thought it may be of interest as part of this discussion. Please see – http://www.mediascope.com.au/w.....a-profiles
It’s an area I’m obviously passionate about and look forward to presenting the views of many more women.
Now for tangible action beyond the talk – I live in hope….
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I agree with all those that want to take the emphasis off gender all together. It should be the right person for the job, so whomever has the best skill set and experience to deliver on the businesses goals period.
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I agree with “the emphasis needs to be taken of gender”.
I think we should ask some obvious questions around this topic.
Is it psychologically possible that men and women can be better suited to different roles and functions ?
Do men and women posses different skills ?
Is it wrong to say that women are better at certain roles than men? .
I believe you need to seek advice by professionals about the functions of a role and what critical characteristics are required to perform this role to the best of ones ability.
Most senior roles require this as a minimum anyway.
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@Sigmund Yes thats a common, but poor excuse used by men for why they don’t consider women to be equally capable. You started well….then contradicted yourself within two sentences. Tony Abbott used this one as I recall. I’d suggest you give up the psychoanalysis and go speak to some real live women with skills, experience and qualifications that have been overlooked and ask them what they think the problem is.
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Would a genderised job-share at the top work?
We do see coalition governments after all . .
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I think it’s utterly naive to say let’s take gender out of the equation. Gender is at the heart of the issue, and until that changes, we will – like it or not – need to continue to have this important conversation.
For one thing, wait for it, women have babies. This is an extremely inconvenient truth for many agencies, and I think it contributes to women missing out on these roles. I’ve seen it happen.
In a company I previously worked at, the word was out to find a PA for one of the senior male executives who was “young, attractive and capable of resisting sexual advances”.
Until stories like this become folklore, we will continue to have an issue on our hands.
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Great to see a man out there commenting on this issue, as a senior woman in media I find the lack of female CEOs currently in play disappointing but not surprising. Added to that when I look around our office and see our amazing female staff I hope things will change so that there is not a career cap for them.
I have spent 20 years in media and have constantly been surprised by some of the behavior that I have been exposed to, definitely time for a change.
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Thank you very much for your comments and opinions. I have also received a host of helpful and constructive emails that I will work through. It feels like there are more issues than solutions at this stage, but hopefully we can find some easy wins to move this important issue forwards.
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A nice synopsis on possible causes by Sunanda Creagh, News Editor of The Conversation, here:
http://newmatilda.com/2013/03/.....-say-media
To start, men are socialised from childhood to have many of the qualities that make a good opinion writer or political journalist: opinionated, confrontational, authoritative, risk-taking, questioning, unwilling to take no for an answer, ambitious and a strong sense of self-belief. Of course, many women have those qualities too, but they have to struggle against a society that often sees women like that as bossy, uppity or a bitch. We saw that when Grahame Morris called Leigh Sales “a cow” for her tough interview with Tony Abbott.
Many women also struggle with imposter syndrome. Where many men go for top jobs knowing they have only some of the qualifications sought for that role, I think women sometimes feel they should wait until they are sure they have all the qualifications needed for top jobs. To generalise: men self-nominate; women wait to be picked. There are also studies showing men are more likely to open pay talks and push for more money, where women are more likely to accept as non-negotiable the pay that is offered.
Because of an unequal division of domestic labour, women mostly do the lion’s share of the daily jobs associated with child-rearing and that impacts their career. Unfortunately, the peak fertility years intersect perfectly with the years when one’s career really starts to take off. Women who have a baby often take a year off, then return to work part-time (and very few employers hand out the payrises and the promotions to part-timers), then perhaps stop again for a second child — all up she may have five years or so off full time work. Meantime, her male colleagues continue up and up. At the same time, her home responsibilities just went through the roof. So many women at this time trade a skyrocketing, glittering career trajectory for flexibility — a job that pays less, has less of a profile but is more family friendly, has flexible work hours and a clear delineation between work time and home time. Senior jobs in journalism tend to require 24-7 availability, a willingness to cover a story that breaks on a Sunday or at 5pm when many women are getting ready for the daycare pick-up.
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AND
Perhaps our menfolk prefer a ‘clubby’ atmos free of female influence . . .
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Brilliant article, and its great that this problem is being discussed openly here. With a purely commercial hat on, it’s dumb that more women are not in the boardroom – research shows that boards with at least one woman on is 20% less likely to go bankrupt and 26% more likely to out perform its competitors. So the question as you have raised, is if we all know and agree with this, then why is the reality so different. I think there are 3 distinct challenges the media industry face in a lack of c level women:
1. Limited flexibility in the work place – women get more confident, and speak up more with age, but just as they are hitting their stride its often bambino time. With rubbish maternity leave, and limited flexibility at senior levels they often decide to stay at home or move to industries or to companies that are more family friendly.
2. Female traits are not valued correctly at board level. The old school media personality trait is hard nosed, hardcore and hardline. Women bring often bring compassion, consideration and care to work with them. Moving forward I believe these attributes will be recognised and values in our work force which is no longer just about buying media cheaply.
3. Women often burn out in the media industry before the guys. It’s that old age saing ‘while a man talks, a woman does’ of course it’s difficult to generalise, but with women trying to have it all, they get burnt out and dissillusioned with a media industry where there a few role models of nice women who haven’t had to give it all up to get a c in their title.
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