Monday, November 28, 2022

16045: DE&I VPs & CDOs TTFN ASAP WTF…?

 

A previous post examined how Chief Diversity Officers—aka DE&I Human Heat Shields—tend to have brief tenures in Adland, prompting cursory exploration on the topic.

 

Apparently, the in-and-out nature of the position is not unique to the advertising industry.

 

Global executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates conducted surveys of the S&P 500 in 2018 and 2021, revealing CDO trivia, trends, and troubles. The analyzed data included:

 

• Between 2018 and 2022, the overall proportion of companies with CDOs grew only slightly from 47% to 52%

 

• The average CDO tenure was 1.8 years in 2021—versus 3.1 years in 2018

 

• About 60% of 2018 CDOs have bailed out of their cubicles—and most of them abandoned the CDO track entirely for other professional pursuits

 

• Roughly 18% of current CDOs have prior experience in the role—versus 26% in 2018

 

It’s hard to guess how the Russell Reynolds Associates survey results might apply to the situation in Adland. But MultiCultClassics reckons that things are probably worse—especially in typical White advertising agencies where first-ever titles are routinely fabricated and awarded for outsiders or resident people of color.

 

Russell Reynolds Associates also recommended key actions, most of which have been echoed ad nauseam by Human Heat Shields and roundly ignored by White advertising leaders. Translation CEO Steve Stoute, incidentally, may have expressed the solutions more succinctly than anyone to date. Although Sanford Moore’s 2009 exposition maintains validity.

 

In summation, CDO is a short-lived job whose death is directly impacted by the level—i.e., lack—of involvement that Whites bring to the proceedings. And for Adland, White clients must be added to the equation too, as they are co-conspirators in perpetuating exclusivity. Delegating diversity remains the diversionary tactic of choice for culturally clueless cowards and latent racists.

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