LONDON — Back when SMG’s Pippa Glucklich was a university student writing her dissertation about women in advertising, just 14% of senior executives in the ad industry in the UK were women. Now, two decades later, the percentage has increased, but only to 25%.
“Our industry in the UK is absolutely split 50/50 at entry level, and by the time you get to the top it’s only 25% [female], so that is a concern,” says Glucklich, the co-CEO at SMG London in this interview with Beet.TV.
Outside of the industry, Glucklich observes that there have been encouraging developments for gender equality of late, like the appointment of Katharine Viner as the first female editor-in-chief of The Guardian. She also notes that the ad industry fares much better in terms of the percentage of women in leadership positions than other sectors like finance and manufacturing. Her own boss, SMG’s global CEO Laura Desmond, is a woman.
But there’s still one glass ceiling in the ad industry that women haven’t broken through.
“I do hope that in my time in the industry we will see a female CEO of one of the major networks,” she says.
Later this month, Glucklich will represent the UK as a judge on the Media Jury at the Cannes Lions Festival.
We interviewed her as part of the series The Road to Cannes, our lead-up to the Cannes Lions Festival presented by Coull. Please visit this page for additional segments.
