Advertising Age reported that the Ad Council appointed soon-to-be-departing Verizon CMO Diego Scotti as the new chair of its board of directors. Whoop-dee-damn-doo.
The role is a volunteer status position, right? Would hate to think the chair—a gig that rotates yearly—might receive any monetary compensation.
In contrast, various sources show Ad Council executives collecting generous salaries, with President & CEO Lisa Sherman raking in nearly $1.2 million annually—and many other executives pocketing at least $200k and up to $475k. That’s a lot for a nonprofit organization.
To make a semi-sloppy segue, it begs questions regarding the Ad Council’s diversity vendor budget—that is, how much money goes to minority-owned enterprises versus White-women-owned companies? And how does the diversity vendor budget compare to the loot awarded to White advertising agencies? Crumbs to cake, no doubt.
Hey, Ad Council even has a history of hiring White people to play minorities.
Ad Council Appoints Diego Scotti As New Board Chair
Scotti is set to depart Verizon as CMO later this year
By Asa Hiken
The Ad Council has appointed Diego Scotti as the new chair of its board of directors. The longtime marketing executive is slated to step down from his current role as chief marketing officer and executive VP at Verizon later this year, though it’s unclear whether he has another job lined up.
Scotti joined the Ad Council board of directors in 2016, led its diversity task force from 2018 to 2021 and has served as its vice chair since 2020. He succeeds Jacki Kelley, executive VP, chief client officer and chief business officer at IPG, who served the typical chair term of one year. Tara Walpert Levy, VP at YouTube, Americas, and co-vice chair of the Ad Council’s board of directors, will succeed Scotti as chair this time next year.
In his new role, Scotti will work with the Ad Council’s governing body and other leadership to spearhead the communication industry’s efforts to address social issues such as mental health, gun violence and racial justice. The non-profit organization typically creates national campaigns to draw attention to these issues; for example, in April the Ad Council teamed with Amazon for an audio-focused campaign addressing teen mental health.
At Verizon, where he has served as CMO since 2014, Scotti helped formulate the Responsible Marketing Action Plan, which is the telecom company’s long-term commitment to furthering diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). He also founded Adfellows, a marketing fellowship targeted toward building diversity at Verizon.
“Diego’s unrelenting commitment to DEI and social impact has been an invaluable asset to the Ad Council and is one of the many reasons he is going to be extraordinary in his role as Board Chair,” said Lisa Sherman, president and chief executive of the Ad Council, in a press statement.
Scotti’s appointment follows recent additions to the Ad Council that were made in April, which included a new chief media officer, DJ Perrera, and new board members.
Odds are Diego does exactly what he did at Verizon: hot air about diversity, lots of talking about diversity, vague initiatives about diversity, but all the major contracts behind the scenes going to white men and (when diversity is invoked) white women.
ReplyDeleteBusiness as usual at Ad Council, basically.