A Los Angeles creative collective named Three’s a Crowd has released a two-year report examining its participating agencies' progress toward increasing the number of Black leaders in the industry—and the findings show both progress and regression.
The In for 13 Initiative, launched in 2020, is composed of 23 agencies and has a goal to boost Black leadership within its membership to 13% by 2023. In that, there has been significant progress. Among agencies within the group are Stagwell's 72andSunny, WPP's AKQA, Interpublic Group of Cos. Deutsch LA and Huge and independent Zambezi.
According to the report, Black executives consist of 6.1% of total leadership across the agencies—a 96% increase from 3.1% in 2020. In addition, 8.9% of total agency employees in 2022 are Black, a 34% increase from the 6.7% in 2020, the report found.
Now for the bad news: The volume of Black leadership has shrunk compared to 2021. Last year, total Black leadership within the group sat at 6.5%, slightly higher than the number in 2022. Only one-third of all surveyed agencies are “satisfied or somewhat satisfied” with their progress in promoting diversity. In 2021, the number of satisfied agencies was 50%.