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Advertising Women of New York Rebrand Media

Advertising Women of New York rebrands as 'She Runs It', pivots mission

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By Laurie Fullerton | Freelance Writer

September 26, 2016 | 5 min read

Advertising Women of New York (AWNY), a non-profit organization created more than 100 years ago to nurture and empower women as leaders, today unveiled a new brand identity designed to reflect the current and future state of marketing and media. The new brand – She Runs It – signals a pivot in the organization's mission, shifting from winning more seats at the table for women, to a sharper focus on paving the way for women to lead at every level of marketing and media.

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"There is data that proves women-led companies are extremely profitable, socially responsible and innovative, yet women remain vastly under-represented in the most senior roles across our industry," said Lynn Branigan, president and CEO of She Runs It. "You can't solve a problem this pervasive until you truly understand it, so this study is designed to lead us to data-driven solutions. We didn't want to just confirm what we already know, we wanted to identify specific actions that companies and individuals can make to correct the industry's track record."

The study, "Accelerating the path to leadership for women in marketing and media" outlines actions that companies and individuals can take to advance more women into positions of influence and leadership.

The researchers looked at more than 4,000 companies across seven sub-sectors. The sub-sectors include publishers, digital publishers, broadcast and cable networks, ad-tech companies, creative and media agencies, public relations and advertisers.

The resulting sample set reflects more than 3.7m members globally across all career stages.

While an estimated 41 per cent of the individuals at early career stages in marketing and media workforce are women, there are only 25 per cent in positions of executive leadership. The report notes that talent and career trajectories vary by sub-sector with broadcast/cable, ad tech and pure play digital struggling the most to attract women and propel them into executive leadership roles. Overall, representation of women is trending downward in every sector except PR. The biggest barrier for women continues to be the step from senior leadership into the C-suite, and the drop-off at the top is most dramatic in media and creative agencies, the report notes.

"More than three million profiles from LinkedIn were analyzed in aggregate, providing definitive data points and insights at scale. It's very powerful to have the data to inform what actions we can all take to fast forward to gender parity at the top of our industry," said Janet Balis, principal and leader of strategy consulting for media and entertainment, Ernst & Young LLP. "Across media and advertising, it's particularly powerful to look at the specific sub-sectors that drive the ecosystem so we help build a better working world across the leading companies. The call-to-action is clear for individuals and companies."

The study also notes that women need to do a better job of building their personal brand, at every stage of their careers. An ability to build a personal brand is a key factor in upward mobility, and the data indicates that men are better than women at creating this advantage. Women need to put more focus and energy into creating rich and robust presence on social networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Women also need to put more effort into building their personal networks throughout their careers. On average, men in both leadership and mid-career influencer roles have 15 per cent more connections than women in their overall network.

The study exposed a "messy middle" category comprised of mid-career professionals on their way to leadership roles. During this stage of their careers, women must be particularly intentional in developing – and promoting – the skills required for leadership roles. The study suggests that companies could provide more opportunity for women to learn the skill sets inherent to HR, finance and strategy, where the biggest gap exists. In addition, women should be more proactive in getting recognized for their skills, particularly in management, leadership and strategy.

On average, close to 70 per cent of all professional endorsements are coming from men. In addition, men tend to endorse men at a higher rate as compared to women. At the leadership level across media and marketing, that percentage of endorsements provided by men rises to 78 per cent; and the numbers are similar at the influencer level.

As She Runs It embraces a new mission – to pave the way for women to lead at every level of marketing and media – the research creates an actionable springboard and prescriptive insights that will inform the programming and strategic initiatives of the 100-year-old organization.

She Runs It orchestrates more than 50 market-facing efforts each year – in the form of events, executive achievement awards, workshops, mentoring programs, training sessions and other educational programs for women and men. She Runs It also works with corporate alliance partners to give more women access to the resources, training and personal development they need to succeed.

"Now that we have hard data that reveals the barriers and drop off points for women across all sub-sectors of our industry, we can dive deeper to get a true understanding of why these conditions and outcomes persist," said Branigan. "And armed with this knowledge, we can make palpable strides to address the challenges and realize our vision to have more women join their male colleagues at the head of more industry tables."

Advertising Women of New York Rebrand Media

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