Top agencies on how they’re recognizing International Women’s Day 2023

For International Women’s Day, on March 8, we will be hosting a special interview with Nataliya Morozova, CEO of Havas Village Ukraine, on her experience navigating the war, the ongoing impacts being faced by women and girls, and the challenges and lessons that have shaped her as a leader.

For the rest of the month and across North America, our agencies and supporting employee resource groups will be hosting a series of events, including ‘Manbassador Training’ to share the importance of allyship within our environment, a panel on ‘Why Women in Ads Need Women in Advertising’ with key leaders from the network and guest speakers from the industry, a live forum with our North America director of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, employee highlights across our offices and our social platforms and much more! 

Globally, we continue to run Femmes Forward, a career advancement program for women at the senior manager/director level. Additionally, as part of our HeForShe commitment to increasing the number of women in creative leadership roles, we will be continuing Femmes Forward Frida – an immersive learning and development experience for top talent at the creative director level.

Through all that we do, we emphasize the strength of our Havas Villages, ensuring that those in it have the resources, support, and environment to thrive.

Stephanie Nerlich, chief exec, Havas Creative North America

DDB

This International Women’s Day, in the spirit of embracing equity, we are honoring all the women of DDB who take risks and feel the freedom to do so. Based on the insight that women in the workplace are less likely to take risks than their male counterparts, our campaign, entitled ‘Embrace Equity and Risk,’ will shine a light on women of all backgrounds and levels as they share personal instances of their thoughts on equity when they took a risk and if and how it paid off.

The global International Women’s Day initiative is yet another example of how we at DDB bring to life our ‘Four Freedoms’: Freedom to Be; Freedom to Fail; Freedom from Fear; and Freedom from Chaos – a set of values that provide employees with the psychological safety to stretch the limits of what’s possible without fear or consequence. The social campaign will roll out during the month of March and there will be a dedicated microsite.

Nikki Lamba, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, DDB Worldwide

VMLY&R

VMLY&R is taking this year’s Women’s History Month theme, #EmbraceEquity, a step further with a focus on women’s healthcare – a topic that has been raised the most by the women across our agency.

Spanning the month, we’re running various informative and inspirational sessions, including a panel raising awareness on the lack of gender parity in Women’s healthcare, an informational session from experts to educate us on how women can advocate for themselves and even a comprehensive resource guide for women’s healthcare. We are also running a spotlight on reproductive health that includes panel discussions and a curated collection of personal stories from our female employees and allies of women that we’ll share globally.

Additional activations include … Alka Joshi, author of The Henna Artist and Jaipur Trilogy hosting an event discussing the gender themes in her books; a Women's gift and donation guide [spotlighting] women-owned businesses offering products or services as well as top-rated women-centered charities in partnership with Berlin Cameron’s LLShe; and #IamRemarkable workshops, Google’s global initiative empowering women and underrepresented groups to speak openly about their accomplishments in the workplace and beyond.

Kiran Chaudhri Lenz, group director, global business management for data and innovation, VMLY&R, and chair of womens‘ employee resource group Lumina

Ketchum

As a consultancy with a colleague base that is 78% female, Ketchum is committed to supporting and celebrating our colleagues every life and career stage. Speaking from my personal experience, 26 years with Ketchum and counting, this agency has been a part of all my major milestones — managerial development, marriage, motherhood, caregiving and ongoing professional ascension.

So of course, we’re celebrating International Women’s Day to honor and support our colleagues. We’ve curated some thoughtful activations: notably an interactive keynote with luminary equity expert, Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play; several moments to connect during our Mentoring Circles; and others planned by Omniwomen, an Omnicom Media Group ERG, featuring Harvard Business School professor Francesa Gino.

Amanda Kowal Kenyon, chief employee experience officer, Ketchum

Droga5

This Women’s History Month, Ampersand, Droga5's women-identifying employee resource group, is celebrating the multidimensionality of women. Whether we’re behind the scenes, on the scene or making a scene, we’re never just one thing and never alone – we’re of many. More than our title, our last name or our status. We’re a reflection of the women who paved the way, and are responsible for those still walking. We’re the sum of our parts and a part of something bigger than ourselves.

To bring our theme ‘of many’ to life, we are partnering with two guest photographers to capture portraits of our employees and their many facets, followed by a panel to discuss their experience in the industry, their other talents and where they find inspiration. Throughout the month, we’ll highlight women-owned businesses, talent and artists through the food and vendors we bring in, our monthly corkboard series and our happy hours.

Plus, with women producers currently making up only 2.8% of the music industry, it was important for us to highlight these artists through a Women’s History Month playlist.

And to wrap up the month, we’re supporting two local women-owned businesses [at an event] for the agency to celebrate the many identities of the women here at Droga5.

Alex Robinson, group project manager and lead of Ampersand, Droga5's women-identifying employee resource group

Media.Monks

This year’s International Women’s Day theme at Media.Monks is “Engage with Equity” with many activities planned to further our thinking and support our mission to embrace equity in the workplace. In addition to many local events, globally we’ll be taking the day to celebrate and uphold the contributions of some of the women from our team. Our global programming includes a panel discussion with members from our executive leadership team and our global general counsel, presented by Jess Clifton who supports our women year-round through her initiative “WomenConnect.” We’ve invited our wider team to submit questions and videos in advance to keep the conversation more dynamic and personal. We’ll also feature speakers from across many different teams and disciples for “Take 10,” a set of mini-presentations to connect and ignite conversation. The global programming will be streamed around the world, and our local offices are putting on viewing parties and other activities to uniquely reflect the women in their community.

In addition, we’re sharing our excitement by feeding the feeds with custom banners and profile graphics for those that want to show their support and allyship. Our goal is to inspire our community of 9,000+ to use their voice for good, sharing stories and experiences that uplift and push us forward all month long. I’m personally excited about the marquee social highlight reel our team has been working on that will highlight the achievements of women working at Media.Monks in the past year.

Kate Richling, chief marketing officer, Media.Monks

Momentum Worldwide

At Momentum Worldwide, we have launched a peer-to-peer recognition tool, Nectar, that our people use to share kind words about each other, [which is part of our theme] #WomanKIND. To honor International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month more broadly, we are encouraging everyone to use their points to recognize a woman that actively advocates for them and their growth, or a woman whom they want to champion and fuel growth for. We are encouraging our people to share their stories on how women have advocated or championed them across our offices and sharing the responses via our social channels, as well as during a panel that we will stream via our town hall.

We will also use this month to highlight the tremendously-talented women that we have at Momentum, both internally and across our digital and social channels, throughout the month of March. Finally, we will continue to focus on practicing allyship in our workplace, which is a critical component of providing opportunities for our talent and fostering diversity across all levels of our organization.

Donnalyn Smith, global chief executive officer, Momentum Worldwide

GroupM North America

In recognition of this year’s national theme for Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, ‘Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories’ and ‘#EmbraceEquity,’ we’re spotlighting our Women’s employee resource group (ERG) leads and the work they do across WPP and our agency collective (Wavemaker, Mindshare and EssenceMediacom).

Additionally, we’ve curated a month-long series of hybrid events spanning fun trivia events, facilitating #IamRemarkable workshops – a Google initiative empowering women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond – to panel discussions, like ‘Women Know Your Worth’ presented by the nonprofit organization Until There are Nine and a bodily autonomy presentation by our GroupM and Mindshare research teams together with New York Magazine which includes support groups [to foster] more intimate dialogue.

I’m excited about ‘The Power of Personal Storytelling’ workshop with OVID hosted by EssenceMediacom, as well as the ‘FemTech Revolution’ panel hosted by Wavemaker, which provides a stage for women leading innovation in the femtech ecosystem.

I’m also pleased to see us educate our people about important topics like protecting women’s online safety, women and retirement, women’s healthcare equity, using technology to drive equity and harnessing creativity to embrace equity. We are also encouraging our people to join our women’s ERGs.

Lukeisha Paul, head of diversity, equity and inclusion US, GroupM North America

​​Mosaic North America

In support of International Women’s Day … [we’re] planning thoughtful reflections at the agency through a live panel discussion focusing on this year’s International Women’s Day theme ‘DigitALL: innovation and technology for gender equality,’ with live panelists in our Toronto, Liberty office.

Later, an Acosta Group agency-wide webinar will be available for 37,000 associates to attend. With this programming, we hope to reignite attention for the day, celebrate women’s achievements and continue to call for gender parity.

We have a collective responsibility to the generations of women and girls to close the gender inequality gap. Through the International Woman’s Day [programming] we are hosting this year, we intend to bring awareness to the theme of #EmbraceEquity. We want to spark conversations and creative ideas about how to change systemic barriers that get in the way of people’s ability to thrive.

Justine Greenwald, managing director, chief creative officer, Mosaic North America

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