15746: TGIF DE&I PR BS.

 

Digiday interviewed Merkle Global Chief Equity Officer Kirt Morris, who delivered the standard status report on DE&I in Adland. That is, DE&I is DOA. Duh. It’s often stressed that CDOs should not be part of HR. All the recent hiring, editorial writing and trade journal interviewing shows they’re not HR—they’re PR.

 

‘People are over-mentored, under-sponsored’: Merkle’s global chief equity officer sounds off on ‘DE&I industrial complex’

 

By Kimeko McCoy

 

The social justice movement that reached a fever pitch after the murder of George Floyd two years ago has seemingly simmered to a dull roar across the advertising and marketing industry. Diversity, equity and inclusion numbers that agencies promised slow trickled in 2021. And much of the industry’s approach to Black History Month this year did little more than check a performative box, per previous Digiday reporting.

 

However, after a wave of hiring and promoting DE&I experts across the industry, some agencies, like Dentsu’s Merkle have tried to maintain momentum through a combination of representation and retention efforts. Kirt Morris, global chief equity officer at Merkle, began this work after stepping into the role last January. He has been with Merkle for over a decade. Digiday caught up with Morris to talk about what those efforts have looked like over the past year and the work there is still to be done.

 

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

 

How have you seen the workforce changes in terms of diversity, and how have you been working to change that?

 

Speaking honestly and frankly, the landscape of Merkle was predominantly white. Our executive team was predominately white and predominantly male. Dentsu has a public commitment to be 50-50, from an executive women standpoint, by the year 2025. And Merkle, as part of Dentsu, we are committed to that vision as well. We are on par to get to that goal by 2025. Because over the last couple of months, we’ve hired three executives women [Liz Rafferty, global chief people officer; Sarah Strassheim, global chief financial officer; and Sandra Swindle, global chief operating officer] in that role. I would be remiss to say we [don’t] have more work to do to have BIPOC representation at that level as well. We are working multiple angles. Not only from a recruiting standpoint to getting new talent in the door, but also recognizing the talent that’s already here as well.

 

It always seems to come full circle back to the talent-pipeline problem. How does the industry finally get past that?

 

We are diversifying the actual talent acquisition channels. We have partnerships with [The Association of Hispanic Professionals] Prospanica. We are inking a partnership with the National Black MBA Association [and HBCU Howard University]. We need to build and diversify the incoming talent at the top of the funnel. We also need to start tracking who’s getting a phone screen [interview], who’s getting an interview, who’s getting an offer, and who’s getting an actual callback.

 

Two is looking internally, identifying high-performing, high-potential women and people of color, and making sure we put our arms around them, creating programs right to elevate their voices. Once you invite these people into those programs, what happens next? The program ends and we need to continue to actually sponsor them. People are over-mentored, under-sponsored.

 

Define sponsor. What does that mean?

 

A sponsor is somebody that will advocate for you when you are not in the room. As people of color, women and other marginalized groups know, you’re typically not at that table. Having somebody that knows you well, could vouch for the work that you have done, they could advocate for you. That’s a true sponsor.

 

After the murder of George Floyd, there was a lot of talk about DE&I in the industry. Two years later, how is that holding up?

 

The attention in the industry has lulled a little bit. There’s a sense of fatigue in the machine. I call it the DE&I industrial complex. There was a lot of attention, but some folks have actually moved on. As chief diversity officers, we have to lean in and say this problem hasn’t changed from 2020, even 2021. There’s still a lot more work to do and how do we lean in as organizations? The good thing is that we are seeing clients now coming to us and saying we need to see a diverse team. If we continue to tie it to the work that we’re doing for our clients, and clients are asking us to show up in that way, that will continue the actual momentum going forward.

15292: Diversity At The Intersection Of Technology, Data And Project Management…?

 

Advertising Age interviewed new Merkle Global Chief Equity Officer Kirt Morris, who assumed his role this month. Of course he did. Morris plans to leverage his expertise with technology, data and project management to drive change. Of course he will. Then again, using technology to peek at Merkle leadership is all the data you need to see Morris has a major project to manage. Of course he does.

 

Merkle’s Kirt Morris On His New Role As Global Chief Equity Officer

 

The 13-year veteran of the Dentsu-owned data hub officially took up the post this month

 

By Lindsay Rittenhouse

 

Dentsu’s Merkle promoted Kirt Morris to its executive team as global chief equity officer late last year, and he assumed that new role this month.

 

In the role, Morris oversees diversity, equity and inclusion efforts for Merkle as well as Dentsu’s customer experience management line of business. He reports to Merkle Global CEO Craig Dempster “with a dotted line” to Christena Pyle, who joined from Time’s Up Advertising as chief equity officer for Dentsu Americas last August, according to the company.

 

Morris previously was senior director of data management and also advised Merkle’s DE&I team. He first joined the data and analytics firm in 2007, as a project manager, and before that spent time at Ernst & Young and Capgemini.

 

Ad Age recently caught up with Morris to discuss his new role.

 

The following interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

 

What exactly are your responsibilities as global chief equity officer? What does that entail?

 

I’ll be basically setting the diversity, equity and inclusion strategy for the U.S., making sure we have diversity of people, equitable policies and practices, inclusion throughout our corporate culture.

 

What’s your first task?

 

My first task is just learning about the actual business. What I’m thinking for my first 90 to 100 days is to learn and then create a plan to execute for the rest of the year. One of the things I’m looking at is making sure we have retention and recruitment [of diverse people].

 

Merkle says you’re a 12-year veteran of the company with experience in technology implementation and system integration. [As part of Merkle’s data management group, the company said Morris oversaw end-to-end delivery of CRM platforms for its retail vertical.] How does DE&I come into play in that space?

 

I’m drawing upon two sets of experiences in this role. My experience in tech, and project management as part of that, is really important. Data is a core part of how we measure ourselves. I’ll also be managing the resources we have to build DE&I within the company. My second experience is that I’m an immigrant and person of color.

 

And how has it been for you working in this industry as an immigrant and person of color? Did you face any micro-aggressions or overt acts of racism?

 

Yes, any person of color in this industry will tell you that. I came up through the big consulting firms, Ernst & Young and Capgemini. Throughout my career, one thing I found companies need to do a better job doing is making sure there is representation of all groups at higher levels. That is a main focus for me at Merkle. How do we get women, people of color to break into management levels?

 

How are you working to do that?

 

As we’ve seen in the past, the industry has worked at a [slow] pace. The killing of George Floyd in 2020 escalated that approach. One of the things we’re doing is, we have a plan. We are holding ourselves accountable to that plan. Data is obviously a big part of that plan in understanding where we are now and in forecasting where we need to go.

 

Do these responsibilities fall just on you or do you have a team? A criticism I’ve heard from some chief DE&I officers at other agencies is that oftentimes these efforts, which are enormous, fall solely on their shoulders when you wouldn’t see that in any other division or department.

 

So, yes. Basically I report to Craig Dempster. I also have a dotted line to the chief equity officer at Dentsu [Pyle]. We have multiple people on the team. I alone can’t do this. So what I’m asking of all our leaders is to find their purpose, something bigger than themselves and make sure everyone is leaning into DE&I. It’s too big of a job for one person.

 

Let’s say an employee has a DE&I-related issue or question he or she wants to bring up with the company. Can that employee come to you? Or what’s that process look like?

 

If it’s an employee question, they have to go directly to HR. Then if I need to be included in that conversation, HR will pull me in. At the Dentsu level, we also have a hotline for employees so they can call in and give input that way.

 

One of the things we’ve heard early on into the social injustice movement is really that we can’t let these conversations, this momentum around improving DE&I slip like we saw it happen in the past. Is that momentum being sustained?

 

This is a movement, not a moment. What we have done at Merkle, like I said, Craig Dempster is heavily involved. I deal with Craig every two weeks; we meet biweekly. This is top of mind for him, as well. I saw in an article, there are four things companies are doing to sustain momentum. One is having commitment at the very highest level. I meet with global folks at least once a month. No. 2 is data, which I mentioned earlier. Three is getting mid-level management and senior leaders to spend time and money. Craig has added to the budget DE&I. The last pillar is making sure you have specific targeted programs for underrepresented groups. At Merkle, we launched mentorship and sponsorship programs to make sure individuals from underrepresented backgrounds have access to leadership.

 

Why is mentorship and sponsorship so important?

 

You need to see to be. Just having me in this role will hopefully show employees everything is possible for them. I think it’s important that mentorship is bidirectional, as well. Executives will learn something from [mentees] by talking to them, learning from that person’s lived experience. On the flip side, employees will get tips of the trade so to speak.