Communications Council appoints two women board members to address gender shortfall
The Communications Council has added two women to its board after complaints that it was male dominated and Sydney centric.
Melinda Geertz, CEO of Leo Burnett Melbourne and Lindsey Evans, partner at Happy Soldiers in Sydney, have both joined the board.
In May the original board of the Communications Council was unveiled. All 12 members of the board – the first since the merger of the Advertising Federation of Australia, AWARD and the APG – were men.
APMA – the Australasian Promotional Marketing Association has since joined the Comms Council. APMA chairman David Lo, from The Marketing Zoo, has also joined the Comms Council board.
Comms Council chairman Anthony Freedman said: “The current Board members were appointed to represent the geographic breadth and diversity of our membership. It is a Board of extremely experienced representatives within different agency roles, but in their election, we neglected the gender balance. We’ve been rightly reminded of the need to better reflect the views of the women in the industry so with David Lo joining the Board, we’ve now added these two positions with the intention to redress the imbalance.”
Evans said: “I‘m very proud to have been invited to join the Council’s Board and am looking forward to working with Daniel, Anthony and all the Board members. If we are to be recognised for the true value we help to create – for our clients and their brands – then bringing together all the disparate disciplines and stakeholders is exactly what our industry needs today. And this is exactly what the Council is all about.”
Before co-founding Happy Soldiers, Evans was MD of The Campaign Palace Sydney.”
And Geertz said: “Being offered this Board membership is a big honour, but I also see it as a big responsibility, so I didn’t take this position lightly. I am delighted to join however and the challenge this industry has in retaining female talent will definitely be one of the issues on my agenda.”
Daniel Leesong, CEO of the Communications Council said “We’re very happy to have been able to re-assess our constitution to accommodate these new positions. With the creation of these openings we’re now welcoming three very experienced agency leaders to our Board and look forward to their input and ideas.”
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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Fantastic! More women brains about the better!
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