17520: On Registration-Only Exclusivity At Cannes.

 

Advertising Age reported on the increased registration-only events at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which especially frustrated newer attendees denied access beyond velvet ropes.

 

Um, Cannes has always embraced exclusivity—marginalizing people based on status at White advertising agencies, country of origin, gender, sexual identity, race and ethnicity, etc.

 

Hell, even the Omnicom Inclusion Breakfast was an exclusive affair.

 

As for registration-only issues, don’t forget the initiatives to ban registered sex offenders.

 

Registration-only events make Cannes feel less democratic and overly programmed

 

By E.J. Schultz, Ewan Larkin, and Brian Bonilla

 

To thrive at Cannes this year, you needed two things: a fan and your name on countless registration lists. It was the hottest Cannes in memory and also perhaps the most exclusive one.

 

While the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has seen a steady rise in roped-off events, this year it seemed to reach a tipping point. The beach and harbor were again dominated by activations that required registration, including Stagwell’s Sport Beach, Amazon Port, Spotify Beach and others. This year, there was a noticeable encroachment inland, with multiple cafes overtaken by vendors and agencies, which used them to conduct invite-only programming or hold client meetings, effectively shutting them off from average festival-goers.

 

One big change from last year: Caffe Roma, a normally welcoming spot in the shadow of the Palais, was overtaken by Creative Artists Agency, where people guarding the entrance turned away anyone not on the list.

 

“People without a pay-to-play space are having to get real inventive about where to eat and meet this year, given the sprawling nature of branded spaces—they’ve exploded,” said Oliver McAteer, head of development and partner at Mischief @ No Fixed Address. “It feels like no inch of Cannes has been left untouched. Quiet restaurants you could sneak away to and take a meeting or grab a rare bite are now an AI firm you’ve never heard of. AI is likely the reason I am sunburned.”

 

The situation added more fire to the long-running debate over whether Cannes Lions has lost its appeal as a community gathering for creatives of all stripes, especially those without industry connections.

 

Take it from Fernando Machado, the chief brand officer of Chipotle, who has been coming to Cannes since he was a rising marketer at Unilever. “It was just the Palais,” he said in an interview this week, referring to the festival’s traditional home venue. “I would buy two cereal bars, two Gatorades” and “be there for the day.” He referred to this year’s festival as being filled with RSVP lists and Cannes “bouncers.”

 

“It makes it less democratic, right?” Machado said. “I’ve been in the industry for long now, and I know a lot of people, so I think it’s easy for me to get in.” But Fernando from 15 years ago would likely be shut out, he added.

 

Leeann Leahy, CEO of The Via Agency, shared a similar perspective. “It feels more like a ‘No, you can’t’ festival with all of its closed doors and over-programmed venues. And I have always loved the discovery of this festival,” Leahy said, noting that it took her “an hour to find a cafe that wasn’t taken over by some brand somewhere.”

 

Frances Webster, CEO of Walrus, said she had to take a breakfast meeting at the Gutter Bar, which is typically popular for late-night drinks, because so many Cannes restaurants were rented out this year.

 

WPP’s VML took over Beryte, a Lebanese restaurant, while tech brand InMobi took over another eatery to promote Glance, an intelligent shopping agent.

 

There was also some disgruntlement about the Carlton Hotel, which often serves as a watering hole for delegates beginning at night and extending into the early hours of the morning. Attendees reported being turned away by security unless they were meeting with somebody already inside, and voiced complaints about the hotel charging $100 per person to sit at a table. Tom Morrissy, chief growth officer of independent media agency Noble People, said such tactics hurt “the history and spirit of the festival.”

 

How the scorching heat affected Cannes

 

Of course, with scorching temperatures, drinking late into the night was not always the best idea. A historic heat wave gripped France for most of the week. The most common sight on the Croisette: People draped in event lanyards and wristbands holding fans. Nicola Mendelsohn, head of Meta’s global business group, summed it up quite nicely at a panel on WPP’s rooftop near the end of the week, suggesting her Oura ring “thinks I’m dead.”

 

The heatwave “made every indoor session a refuge and outdoor activations a genuine endurance test,” Lindsay Slaby, founder of marketing consultancy Sunday Dinner, wrote in her Cannes recap for clients. She noted that it “probably contributed to the intimacy premium: small dinners, air-conditioned villas, the sessions with 21 people at the art hotel beat everything happening at Croisette scale.”

 

She also observed that the “old Cannes energy was genuinely porous,” referring to past festivals of “creative directors running into clients at the Gutter Bar at 2 a.m.,” and “serendipitous collisions that turned into briefs.”

 

The corporate sprawl beyond the Palais is a physical manifestation of how Cannes continues to evolve into a business conference as much as it is a creativity festival. Ad tech players, who began descending on Cannes years ago, are now joined by a growing number of consultancies. Boston Consulting Group upped its Cannes presence starting about four years ago and this year ran its BCG House along the Croisette, with programming on topics such as organizational transformation and the path from CMO to CEO.

 

“Marketing is one of our biggest topics for us commercially,” said Jessica Apotheker, BCG’s CMO, managing director and senior partner. “It’s just a great opportunity to engage with marketing leaders. We will share some more thought leadership, connect with the right people, and also connect with the technical system.”

 

Cannes Lions itself is leaning into executive involvement. For the second year in a row, it hosted a Global CEO Forum. This year, the closed-door session at the Carlton ran on the festival’s opening day and was “strictly limited to 50 personally invited global CEOs,” according to its website, with McKinsey listed as a “lead insight partner.”

 

Still, there does appear to be a concerted effort to preserve the festival’s original creative spirit. Ciaran McCarthy, VP of brand and global advertising at Microsoft, told Ad Age on Monday that his whole team was in the South of France this week, spending lots of time walking the work and attending award shows.

 

“I hope others are doing the same,” McCarthy said. “It’d be a shame to come here and not.”

17180: Racial & Gender Discrimination On The Horizon…?

 

Adweek reported Horizon Media—the world’s biggest privately-owned media agency—is facing a lawsuit with charges including racial and gender discrimination, perpetuating a hostile workplace, and retaliation.

 

The White media agency’s website counters with declarations of being an “Agency of Belonging” and proclamations like, “At Horizon, DEI is not dead; it is our DNA…”

 

But wait, there’s more: “Horizon Media operationalizes DEI within an innovative, industry-first Enterprise Marketing & Equity function, ensuring DEI is embed [sic] into every aspect of Horizon’s business.” Too bad proofreading isn’t embedded into Horizon’s business.

 

If performative PR were illegal, this place—like most White advertising agencies and White media agencies—would draw even more charges.

 

Execs Allege Racial and Gender Discrimination Against Agency Horizon in Federal Lawsuit 

 

One current and one former executive at Horizon Media claim that the company created a hostile culture that included targeted bias against them, undue restrictions on resources, and sexualized directives

 

By Kendra Barnett

 

A lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday accuses Horizon Media, the largest privately owned media agency in the world, of racial and gender discrimination, perpetuating a hostile work environment, and retaliation.

 

Charisma Deberry, who currently serves as vice president of strategic communications and engagement at Horizon, and Latraviette Smith-Wilson, who was previously chief marketing and equity officer, claim executives at the agency discriminated against them and retaliated when they opposed or reported unfair treatment. Both executives are Black, and Smith-Wilson was the company’s highest-ranking Black woman before her termination in April.

 

“Horizon’s most senior executives—including Founder & CEO Bill Koenigsberg, President Bob Lord, and EVP of HR Nancy Galanty—engaged in a sustained, escalating campaign of race- and gender-based discrimination constituting a hostile work environment and retaliation,” reads the complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York.

 

Deberry and Smith-Wilson are seeking monetary damages for the harms they allege, as well as punitive damages and non-monetary remedies that would force Horizon to change some of its practices.

 

“This case is about holding executives responsible for retaliation, discrimination, and fostering a hostile workplace,” said Anne Clark, a partner at Vladeck, Raskin & Clark, P.C., who is representing Deberry and Smith-Wilson.

 

The company responded to the lawsuit in a statement shared with ADWEEK, writing: “Horizon is proud of our 35-year history of fostering an inclusive and award-winning culture. While we do not comment on pending litigation, we categorically reject these allegations and are prepared to vigorously defend them. We maintain the highest standards and stand firmly in our values and our people. We are focused on serving our clients and continuing to be one of the best places to work in the industry.”

 

Horizon is among the most reputable independent agencies in adland. It works with blue-chip brands including SharkNinja, Spectrum, and Warby Parker and, according to its website, employs some 2,500 staffers globally. The firm touts a motto of “business is personal” and has promoted the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the ad industry in years past.

 

Despite a company motto of “DEI is our DNA,” Deberry and Smith-Wilson allege that Koenigsberg and other leaders at the company frequently exhibited biased and targeted behavior toward them, including calling Deberry not “articulate” and demeaning Smith-Wilson as “defensive” and “incompetent,” while ignoring formal complaints. They also claim to have been excluded from key meetings, even when the meetings directly involved their responsibilities, the lawsuit alleges. 

 

Smith-Wilson also alleges that leadership denied her team staff and budget while giving more resources to White male executives who had narrower scopes of work.

 

In one instance in 2023, Koenigsberg allegedly told Deberry, who leads communications at Horizon, that it was her responsibility to “seduce” reporters—a directive that she believes sexualized and demeaned her professional role, according to the lawsuit.

 

In another meeting in September 2024, Koenigsberg told Smith-Wilson, then a C-suite executive at the company, that her role was to “serve” other Horizon leaders, the lawsuit alleges. Another executive also told her to “report to the board,” even though Smith-Wilson was herself a member of the company’s executive board; Smith-Wilson was not aware of any other executives that had been “told to serve or report to their peers,” the lawsuit claims.

 

A former employee at Horizon, a white woman, cited the mistreatment of Black women at Horizon when she resigned, according to the lawsuit. When Deberry attempted to corroborate the claims, the company’s HR leader Nancy Galanty broke confidentiality by telling leadership, and proceeded to label Deberry as “angry,” the lawsuit alleges.

 

The plaintiffs also assert that Koenigsberg actively tried to undermine and discredit the findings of a Horizon diversity and culture survey in 2023, challenging the benchmark baseline and rates of participation. When the results of a subsequent annual survey suggested employees took issue with inclusion at the company, Koenigsberg and Horizon president Bob Lord criticized the methodology and demanded that the survey company’s cofounder defend its credibility in a meeting with Horizon leaders, according to the complaint.

 

Smith-Wilson, who joined Horizon in 2022, was terminated from the company in April of this year, with Horizon leaders citing a “restructuring,” the lawsuit alleges. Less than a month later, a new enterprise-level CMO was appointed to take over Smith-Wilson’s role. The shakeup was not a restructuring, the lawsuit claims, but “a pretext manufactured to conceal discriminatory and retaliatory motives.”

 

“Companies don’t earn immunity by pointing to diverse hires or past awards; the law demands equal standards, equal opportunities, and equal respect,” Clark, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said. “My clients never wanted to take this course of action. They achieved results despite resistance, and they’re stepping forward because mistreatment cannot be excused or normalized.” 

17070: Omnicom Facing Charges Of Ageism & Sexism.

 

MediaPost reported a former TPN CEO filed an age and gender discrimination lawsuit against Omnicom and TPN, charging she was fired as retaliation for complaining about pay disparities between her and male peers at the White holding company.

 

Hey, she probably would have been terminated anyway for redundancy if the Omnicom acquisition of IPG is finally executed.

 

Or maybe Omnicom Group Chairman-CEO-Pioneer of Diversity John Wren declared the holding company would save up to $750 million by acquiring IPG because the corporate combination results in more White women who can be paid less than Old White Guys. Such a bargain!

 

Omnicom Sued For Discrimination By Former TPN CEO

 

By Steve McClellan

 

Longtime former Omnicom executive Ellen Cook has filed an age and gender discrimination lawsuit against the company, and its commerce agency TPN.

 

Cook was the president of the holding company’s commerce agency The Integer Group for 16 years before being named CEO in 2020.  She became CEO of sibling agency TPN when it and The Integer Group merged in 2023.  

 

In her suit, Cook said she was fired in 2024 after complaining about pay disparities between her and several male peers at Omnicom, including her predecessor at Integer Group Mike Sweeney.  

 

She alleged a 44% disparity between her compensation and Sweeney’s despite facing revenue headwinds which came from client losses under Sweeney’s watch. Cook said in the suit she was able to make up the losses and drive double digit revenue gains under her leadership. 

 

She said her firing was retaliatory after she complained about the pay disparity and followed up several times after the company failed to take remedial action.  

 

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas earlier this week. 

 

The action cites several other lawsuits filed by senior Omnicom women executives in recent years that also alleged discriminatory behavior by the holding company.  

 

Cook is seeking liquidated and compensatory damages, reinstatement or “front pay” if reinstatement isn’t feasible, attorneys’ fees and other costs.

17014: International Women’s Day & Global BS.

Goodby Silverstein & Partners celebrated International Women’s Day by gushing over performative promotional work produced for its client, Argent, featuring a film written by Jeff Goodby.

 

Okay, just to clarify, International Women’s Day was saluted by a White man who waited over three decades to grant a White woman partnership at his White advertising agency.

 

Feels like perfectly patronizing performative PR.

16576: International Invisible Women’s Day In Advertising…?

 

More About Advertising spotlighted the annual CreativeX Gender in Advertising Report, which stated women of colour and older women were grossly underrepresented in ads in 2023. This revelation is the equivalent of declaring the grass is green, the sky is blue, and Adland is White.

 

Newsflash! Women of colour face discrimination and underrepresentation in White advertising agencies too.

 

In the industry, however, women like Susan Storm are definitely not invisible.

 

Some women still discriminated against in ads says new report

 

Women of colour and older women were nearly invisible in ads in 2023 says CreativeX, launching its annual Gender in Advertising Report, timed for International Women’s Day.

 

In 2023 CreativeX says, older women appeared in just 1.5% of all ads (D&G below is a positive example); women with lighter skin tones appeared 4X more frequently than darker-skinned women and women with the darkest skin tones received only 2.6% of brands’ total ad spend.

 

The report found that ads predominantly confine women to traditional roles, such as family and domestic settings. While the representation of women in these roles decreased from 66% to 30% between 2022 and 2023, their representation in non-traditional roles like leadership (3.4%) and professional (8.5%) settings remains disproportionately low.

 

Even when women are depicted in non-traditional roles, ad spend decisions “undermine” their visibility, according to CreativeX. Although ad spend on women in physical roles increased 1060% in 2023 compared to 2022, the overall investment in these portrayals of women remains low, accounting for only 3.7% of spend on ads featuring women.

 

The new analysis includes data from 32,213 “assets” backed by over $260 million in ad spend from 322 brands, 81 markets, across 8 digital channels in 2023.

 

Founder and CEO Anastasia Leng says: “For years, the lack of progress on representative advertising has been blamed on a lack of data, which hindered our ability to quantify the gap between where we wanted to be and where we were. Our industry dedicated lots of air time to talking about the problem, so many assumed we were getting better at inclusively representing people in ads.

 

Well the data’s here and it shows yet again that intent isn’t translating to action. Change doesn’t happen overnight, and it requires ongoing measurement to drive sustainable progress. Advances in technology now enable us to track and measure the creative decisions we’re making, in near real-time, including breaking out how we’re casting and portraying people in ads and determining if those decisions map to what we know about our consumers and our markets’ changing demographic trends.”

 

16572: BAD, MAD, SAD—EGAD!

 

Newgen Software and Buffalo Soldiers in India hatched this International Women’s Day campaign, offering the lengthy and ludicrous explanation below. A peek at Newgen and Buffalo Soldiers leadership shows the concept is performative propaganda, as the MAD greatly outnumber the BAD at both organizations—which is really SAD.

 

Here’s the explanatory excrement:

 

Newgen Software approached Buffalo Soldiers to come up with a Women’s Day Video that starts the right kind of conversations at workplaces by breaking biases.

 

The Ask:

 

If we are sparking conversations that challenges the prevailing notion, we need a first of a kind extended campaign in the B2B space that addresses how Newgen breaks systemic biases and raise awareness about the theme of “Investing in Women.”

 

The Campaign:

 

We suggested featuring female leaders to tackle ‘How women are simply perceived as ‘BAD’ at corporate roles’. In the development phase, the idea of men joining the convo too was explored and how ‘MAD’ they are to always motivate their women peers and facilitate room for their growth. Because it’s time to UNBIAS.

 

In the face of modern day adversity, women have stopped limiting themselves to sheer circumstance. They have become the voice of change, the wind that inspires a new era. Their work has brought not just promises to life but a change in perception. So when others think women are BAD, we believe them to Be A Differentiator.

 

In the case of gender equality, men have been key motivators for women to rise up. It is not about stepping aside or doing favors but giving credit where credit is due, and appreciating talent regardless of where it originates. So when others think men are MAD for supporting change, we believe them to Making A Difference.

 

This Women’s Day in 2024, we captured these mavericks owning stereotypes and busting the myths that have held us back as a society.

 

The digital film was directed by award-winning director Saurabh Dubey, whose debut film ‘Never Ask Why’ won 63 awards across global film festivals in 2023.

 

The digital-first campaign is running across LinkedIn, Meta, YouTube and Newgen’s offices in India and United States.

 

15552: Reading Mark Read Bullshit…

 

Campaign published an interview with WPP CEO Mark Read that was likely written and/or reviewed by the White holding company’s PR and legal departments. When asked about the JWT sex discrimination lawsuit, Read coughed up the following:

 

CAMPAIGN: JWT, now part of Wunderman Thompson, lost a recent employment tribunal case which found that two male creative directors were unfairly made redundant “because of their sex”. What has WPP, the parent company, learnt from this case and do you really plan to appeal the ruling as Wunderman Thompson has said?

 

READ: The events did take place three years ago at JWT since when we’ve merged the agency and changed the leadership. I am not going to comment on the specifics of that case but I would reiterate that we seek to run our business in a way that doesn’t discriminate against anyone in the company on any basis and that would be my commitment.

 

CAMPAIGN: Jo Wallace, a creative director, who got caught up in the JWT case but was not directly involved, gave an interview to Channel 4 News after the tribunal in which she talked about how it might take 100 years to close the gender pay gap. And if we look at WPP’s published gender pay gap figures for the UK, some of them do seem to have moved very slowly (median gender pay gap was 17.5% in 2020 vs 17.6% in 2019). This is relevant because you talk in these results about how diversity, inclusion and sustainability metrics are now part of the compensation scheme for senior leaders at WPP. So how do you drive change faster?

 

READ: It’s important to me and to our board that we’re clear on our expectations for our leaders that we expect them to build an inclusive culture in their company and the make-up of our workforce should reflect the societies in which we operate.

 

I think about it in two ways: Representation – do we represent the society in which we live in terms of gender, race and other metrics? – and belonging – do the people who work for us feel they belong in our company?

 

Both representation and belonging are things that we are increasingly measuring and we seek to put them in our people’s incentive plans to remind them it’s important and to reward and motivate them to make progress. I think we have to do that and can do that without discriminating on any basis.

 

If you look at the gender composition of our workforce, we’ve made very good progress on Hampton Alexander metrics [for senior female leaders] and we have some progress on the ethnic make-up of our workforce in the US and the UK – but we recognise we’ve got more to do on both.

 

Wow, that’s some pretty slick dodging on Read’s part. To distance himself by claiming “the events did take place three years ago” is pathetic. After all, Read orchestrated the merger between JWT and Wunderman. Did he believe that combining two White advertising agencies—historically dominated by White men—would create a DE&I Nirvana?

 

Read’s dual objectives—representation and belonging—spotlight the abject failure of the CEO and board. Regarding gender and racial equality, he admits “we recognise we’ve got more to do on both”—despite having been with the corporation when it proclaimed that the staffers “represent perhaps the most diverse example of diversity of any single organisation.”

 

Most outrageous is Read’s contention that belonging—which he defined by asking, “[D]o the people who work for us feel they belong in our company?”—is being measured. It would be interesting to learn exactly how the measurement is executed and recorded.

 

The easiest thing to measure is the increasing amount of bullshit excreting from Read’s mouth.

15498: JWT Sex Discrimination Lawsuit Rules For Divertsity.

 

Campaign published a view from an employment lawyer blubbering about the JWT sex discrimination lawsuit and its impact on diversity in Adland. Actually, the attorney only focused on gender equality, adding a minor nod for LGBTQI+ equality. In other words, diversity is all about White people.

 

A view from Amanda Lennon

 

A lawyer’s view on JWT sex discrimination case: what’s next for diversity?

 

An employment lawyer explains why Chas Bayfield and Dave Jenner won their JWT sex discrimination case, and where we go next on diversity.

 

When our discrimination laws were introduced, legislators were unlikely to have envisaged them being used by white, middle-aged, straight men. And yet that is what has happened in the landmark sex discrimination case brought by two former employees of advertising agency J Walter Thompson (now Wunderman Thompson).

 

In 2018, JWT had the worst gender pay gap in the industry at 44.7%, and a new creative director at the shop, Jo Wallace, made comments, in a joint presentation with her then boss, Lucas Peon, that JWT’s reputation as lacking in diversity had to be “obliterated”.

 

Chas Bayfield and Dave Jenner made a complaint to HR about the presentation being discriminatory, claiming that in doing so they were making a protected disclosure (whistleblowing) under the Employment Rights Act 1996. Within a week of the complaints being made, redundancies were announced and some of those who made complaints lost their jobs.

 

Employment Tribunal claim

 

Bayfield and Jenner brought Employment Tribunal claims against JWT arguing that the main reason they were dismissed was because they had made a protected disclosure. They also brought alternative claims that, if this argument failed, JWT discriminated against them due to their sex, race, sexual orientation and/or age, and/or victimised them for making a protected disclosure (all covered by the Equality Act 2010).

 

They also claimed against their line manager, Peon, then executive creative director at JWT, and JWT’s HR director, Emma Hoyle (to whom they had originally complained about the presentation).

 

The Tribunal rejected the employees’ claims that they were dismissed for making a protected disclosure and therefore suffered detrimental treatment, and dismissed their claims for race, sexual orientation and age discrimination. However, the claims for sex discrimination and victimisation succeeded. The Tribunal also rejected all claims against Peon and Hoyle.

 

Much was made in the case about the perception within JWT that the claimants were focused on the “traditional”. In agency terms, this means focused on traditional forms of media (TV, radio and print) as opposed to digital. The Tribunal accepted that this phrase does not mean “old, outdated or out of touch”.

 

The Tribunal also agreed that JWT’s plan to address its gender pay gap legitimately included schemes to advance women to senior roles. However, some slides in the presentation proved to be JWT’s downfall. One read: “WHITE, BRITISH, PRIVILEGED, STRAIGHT MEN CREATING TRADITIONAL ABOVE THE LINE ADVERTISING” followed by verbal commentary that “One thing we all agree on is that the reputation JWT once earnt: as being full of “White, British, Privileged... etc.. has to be obliterated.”

 

The Tribunal found that JWT decided to make the claimants redundant two days after an acrimonious meeting with Peon and Hoyle about the claimants’ views on the presentation. Therefore the claimants were pre-selected for redundancy, making the outcome prejudged. As a result, the redundancy consultation was a sham, and the investigation into the grievances they raised wasn’t conducted fairly. The claimants won their victimisation claim on this basis.

 

They succeeded in their claim that they were dismissed because of their sex, because JWT viewed its senior creative team as male-dominated (a key reason for the gender pay gap issue).

 

An influencing factor was Peon’s and Hoyle’s anger at the claimants’ perception of the presentation and subsequent complaints. This, coupled with the claimants falling into the profile JWT wanted to change, meant that they were dismissed due to their gender and, therefore, won their sex discrimination claims.

 

Promoting diversity

 

Despite diversity being proved to drive innovation and better decision-making, the advertising industry has a long way to go. JWT was not alone in needing to improve its diversity, particularly at leadership level. Women comprise just 17% of creative directors and representation of other groups is also low. JWT was right to promote change, but this case shows how hard it can be without alienating some existing employees.

 

It is crucial that HR has a seat – and a strong voice – at board level, which helps ensure that diversity strategies are implemented sensitively. However, this case demonstrates that it is equally important for all complaints to be given due consideration and respect. Agencies should approach diversity by bringing everyone on the journey.

 

Lastly, a perspective on the treatment Wallace has suffered. She has been subjected to severe internet trolling and received death threats. Yet she co-wrote the presentation with Peon (who has had comparatively little media coverage), and the Tribunal accepted the presentation’s content was appropriate.

 

Wallace was neither involved in the decision to dismiss the claimant nor as a witness in the Tribunal case. However, she has been singled out for criticism and some tabloid coverage has made much of the fact that she is gay.

 

That Wallace is open about this to encourage others should be embraced and respected. It is extremely alarming that she should be scapegoated for the failings of others outside her control.

 

Amanda Lennon is an experienced HR director and employment partner with city law firm Spencer West.