London tribunal rules men axed after director vowed to ‘obliterate’ J Walter Thompson’s reputation of ‘being full of white men’ Two white ma

Ad men sacked to improve gender pay gap win sex discrimination claim

submited by

Style Pass

2021-07-25 20:30:05

London tribunal rules men axed after director vowed to ‘obliterate’ J Walter Thompson’s reputation of ‘being full of white men’

Two white male creative directors at a top London advertising agency have won a sex discrimination claim after a female director vowed to “obliterate” its Mad Men reputation of being full of straight, white men.

Chas Bayfield and Dave Jenner, both in their 50s and renowned creative directors at the J Walter Thompson (JWT) agency, were among five men axed from the agency, which is part of WPP, because bosses “urgently” wanted to address its poor gender pay gap, a tribunal court ruled.

The men were dismissed in November 2018, shortly after the firm revealed a median gender pay gap of 44.7%. The London Central tribunal heard that the pay gap report had sent “shock waves” through the firm as it highlighted a serious lack of female representation.

The agency’s then executive creative director, Lucas Peon, described the pay gap statistics as “really, really horrible”. “In the World Cup of sucking at pay gap numbers, we made the final,” he said at the time.