New initiative urges women-owned agencies to stand up and be counted

Agencies have made substantial strides in upping gender diversity in leadership roles—recent research from She Runs It shows the makeup of women holding industry executive positions is just shy of half and work from the 3% Movement has bumped the percentage of female creative directors to 29% over the past decade. But few of these surveys manage to capture diversity all the way at the top. “You don't really have the power until you own it,” said Christy Hiler, president and owner of ad agency Cornett, who is creating with Jean Freeman, principal and CEO at Zambezi, a new initiative called Own It to collect comprehensive data on the number of female-owned agencies.