Women marching to top in world of marketing

A graduate of the University of Leeds, Miss Hindmarsh said that when she started as a trainee at Saatchi & Saatchi in 1991 women in senior positions within a male dominated team tended to “adopt the behaviours of men around them”.

“Today, women in senior positions in advertising and marketing have a lot more confidence in their seniority. They are not trying to be anyone other than who they are,” Miss Hindmarsh said at the Women’s Business Forum in Harrogate, which attracted around 580 people.

Miss Hindmarsh joined M&C Saatchi in 1995 when it was established as a rival agency by the founders of Saatchi & Saatchi, brothers Charles and Maurice. She was promoted to managing director of M&C Saatchi in 2007 and chief executive in 2011.

Miss Hindmarsh presented the audience with images of advertising industry magazine Campaign, depicting editions from the early 1990s and today. While the magazine was dominated by stories about men a decade ago, she said that today about 50 per cent of the articles are about women in the industry.

“It just struck me that slowly but surely there’s been such a dramatic movement in the roles of women occupying the advertising industry and related sectors.”

She added that in the Marketing’s Power 100 League in 2003 there was only one woman in the top ten, while this year 45 per cent of the top 20 are women.

“One good thing is that nowadays the younger men and women within the organisation have a mix of senior role models to look up and be inspired by.

“So women when I started at Saatchi and Saatchi disappeared when they had children, they never came back, never to be seen again.

“Now, we have a lot of mothers in the business and a lot of them are doing a four-day week... and now progression feels possible for everyone within the organisation.”

Speaking to the Yorkshire Post, Miss Hindmarsh said there has been a “much more significant change” in the industry in terms of gender equality at a senior level than many realise.

In the early 1990s, it could be a struggle for a woman to get her voice heard, suggested Miss Hindmarsh. “If you were in a room dominated by men who are happy to shout over each other it can be difficult to say your piece, but I just learned to keep quiet and wait until there was a gap.

“But I do remember thinking, ‘I really hope I can make my point in a minute’. In some ways, it teaches you to think more before you speak. And I think I did learn that actually.” While being a woman “got in the way a bit” at that time, nowadays it is “not a lense”, she said.

Miss Hindmarsh, who juggles high profile client responsibilities including Transport for London, the Olympic Delivery Authority and Direct Line, with being a mother to three-year-old identical twin boys, said managing a work-life balance is the biggest challenge she faces now as a female in a senior position.

“If you’re a bit of a control freak and a perfectionist, you’re not going to be satisfied with what you’re achieving in either world so you have to manage more compromise than you perhaps feel comfortable with.”

Another speaker, Emily Lawson, senior partner at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, said that despite having diversity strategies in place, many UK organisations are still not seeing the results. She advised more visible senior management commitment, targeting initiatives to particular challenges, getting middle managers on board and addressing underlying mindsets.

Other speakers included Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president at think tank the Center for Talent and Innovation, Bob Charlton, managing director, Asia Pacific, at law firm DLA Piper, Chris Sullivan, chief executive, RBS corporate banking division, and Ben Black, chief executive of My Family Care, which provides work and family support to parents and carers at employers.

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