Saatchi & Saatchi Chairman Resigns Amid Sexism Row

Kelvin Roberts, resigned Chairman of Saaatchi &Saatchi.Photo Credit- The Guardian

Kevin Roberts, the executive chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, has resigned after provoking fury by claiming that women in the advertising industry lacked ambition and were not held back by sexism.

Roberts was put on leave by Publicis, the parent company of Saatchi & Saatchi, last week after denying that sexism was an issue in the advertising world.

But in a statement, the French global advertising group said Roberts had now resigned.

“The supervisory board and the chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe took note of Kevin Roberts’ decision to step down with effect from 1 September 2016, prior to his retirement date due in May 2017.”

Roberts, who is from Lancashire, is also head coach at Publicis and has been at Saatchi & Saatchi’s helm for 20 years. In the interview, he said that rather than holding ambitions to climb the career ladder, many women, and men, simply wanted to be happy and “do great work”.

He said: “They are going: ‘Actually guys, you’re missing the point, you don’t understand: I’m way happier than you.’ Their ambition is not a vertical ambition; it’s this intrinsic, circular ambition to be happy.

“So they say: ‘We are not judging ourselves by those standards that you idiotic dinosaur-like men judge yourself by.’ I don’t think [the lack of women in leadership roles] is a problem.

“I’m just not worried about it because they are very happy, they’re very successful, and doing great work. I can’t talk about sexual discrimination because we’ve never had that problem, thank goodness.”

Roberts said he did not spend any time on gender issues at his agencies, saying the issue was “way worse” in sectors such as financial services, where there are “problems left, right and centre”.

Credit: The Guardian