‘Male industry champions’ recruited to tackle creative gender diversity issue

The Communications Council has created a version of the “male champions of change” group as it seeks to address the gender imbalance in the creative industry.

Questions had arisen in the industry around the Gender Diversity Working Group, which had gone quiet after last year announcing three industry work streams which were designed to develop “a set of practical tools to assist organisations’ management in securing a gender balanced workforce”.

The group was established after the Comms Council’s Gender Salary Survey in 2012 showed women accounted for 27.9 per cent of creatives employed, with 9.9 per cent of those women sitting in senior positions (creative director or ECD roles). The latest survey showed women creatives have dropped to 27.3 per cent, but now make up 13.5 per cent of those employed as creative directors or executive creative directors.

The workstreams followed on from “months of research”, the crux of which found 74 per cent of women claimed they have been treated differently in the workplace because of their gender.