DE&I: Accelerating Change with Michael Ramirez
In addition to helping to define its workplace cultural initiatives, Michael Ramirez is the SVP of media and one of the agency owners/partners at H/L. Michael leads a practice made up of 60 media professionals across planning, buying, digital platforms and analytics and engineering. Michael studied at the University of Southern California and now calls San Francisco home. H/L is a fully independent agency with offices in Oakland, Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix and St. Louis. Learn more about H/L and its commitment to DEI+E at HL.Agency.
LBB> What drew you to the field of DE&I?
Michael> Committing to basic increased Diversity, Equity and Inclusion awareness and practices within our industry — many of which feel homogenised and similar from one agency to the next — just wasn’t big enough for us. At H/L, we believe that momentum is made when opportunities are opened — for our client partners and their businesses, but also for our own people and our communities. We sincerely believe that our work will always be more impactful with the mindful engagement of diverse voices and perspectives. For us, the “+E” — adding engagement — is where we’ve seen the most opportunity to grow.
H/L’s success has been predicated on ad campaigns that resonate with diverse cultures, groups and communities. While we understand the importance of relevancy and representation in our campaigns, we saw the need to turn that lens inward and understand our own philosophy, strategy and practices as it relates to DEI+E. We believe having diverse perspectives both creatively and in understanding our target audiences results in more relevant campaigns and better business growth.
LBB> Before it became your job role, what was your specialism? And how did you get involved?
Michael> I am not a dedicated DEI+E lead for H/L. In fact, we believe that ensuring equity, inclusivity and engagement is a part of everyone’s role at our agency. I am one of our independent agency’s shareholders, the SVP of our Media practice, and I help to lead our DEI+E initiatives with a group of agency team members.
Social injustices during the pandemic accelerated many companies adopting DEI practices. We saw a need and an opportunity to facilitate positive change in our agency by bringing awareness to the implicit biases and need for representation of communities that are systemically underrepresented or under-resourced. At the same time, we saw an opportunity to move beyond how other agencies approach the problem. We started with a simple, fundamental challenge to all H/Lers — we want you to do the best work of your career with us. To ensure that, we’ve taken meaningful steps to foster work environments in which inclusivity, kindness, creativity, courage and physical wellness can flourish.
Beyond our current talent, we recognise that the industry continues to lag in developing diverse talent with fresh perspectives and divergent experiences and backgrounds. We’re extremely proud of the diverse makeup of our employees, including our leadership team. But we also see a real need to create a pipeline for future advertising leaders that’s more inclusive and equitable. We established the Josh Nichol Memorial Scholarship in honour of our former CEO. It’s focused on supporting marginalised high school students in the Oakland Unified School District interested in pursuing careers in advertising, marketing, design and production. Students in the Oakland Unified School District are twice as likely to be BIPOC than the national average. In June, we awarded scholarships to seven of those students. In the future, H/L hopes to support school districts in some of the other cities we call home — Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis and Phoenix, collectively, some of the most socioeconomically and culturally diverse cities in the U.S.
LBB> There’s a lot of frustration around the industry’s glacial pace when it comes to improving DE&I across all sorts of axes. What’s getting in the way?
Michael> There is still a gap in awareness of the implicit biases and need for representation of communities that are systemically underrepresented/under-resourced. But more importantly, there’s still a need to ensure DEI+E plans are a part of daily operations and agency employee connections. It’s easy to train teams on DEI+E and “check the box,” but behaviour change occurs when individuals experience how DEI+E helps them, their communities and their work.
We’ve certainly still got lots of work to do at H/L, but as an independent agency, we’re extremely proud that we’ve offered our client partners a dedicated multicultural marketing practice since 2004 and that we’ve seen our overall employee population and our leadership team makeup become more diverse. For instance, our team of eight agency owners and executive leaders is made up of 25% women and 37% people of colour.
LBB> Outside of the advertising industry, where do you see examples of large-scale meaningful progress (if at all), and what should our industry learn from it?
Michael> Professional sports leagues in the U.S. have forged impressive progress the past several years, particularly around DEI+E. There is always room for more growth, but look at the changes happening with athletes, coaches, leadership and even around fandom.
Our agency recently met with the head of FIFA refereeing to understand the momentum she created to grow and develop female referees. She initially brought awareness to the situation that the organisation will benefit from having a more diverse referee pool and created a space where women have equal opportunities to work with high profile men’s sport. The ad industry needs to continue to be open to fresh perspectives and experiences so employees and audiences can feel represented, which can provide positive business outcomes.
LBB> The dimensions of DE&I can differ somewhat according to geographic/cultural context - I’m curious, where you’re based, what are the big issues or most urgent elements of DE&I that you need to address? (And if your role covers more than one market/territory, how do you and your team navigate the local nuances while having a cohesive and consistent set of values?)
Michael> H/L team members span 20+ states, so a growing challenge is to develop an agency culture that incorporates geographic scale. Our approach threads onboarding, in-person meetings and company-wide initiatives that rely on cross-discipline, multi-office collaboration. We created the H/L Foundation to produce programs like our scholarship, but also programs like Project Paella and H/L Holiday Help that empower employees to weave personal and professional passions into their local communities. We all benefit by bringing our outside-of-work lives into our day-to-day work relationships. That’s what creates a more engaging and inclusive environment.
LBB> In your role, what have been some of the most meaningful projects or policies you’ve been involved in regarding DE&I?
Michael> As a company, we’ve committed to a sustained effort to continue to create positive change and further equity — in our agency, in our communities and in our industry. We want to push ourselves past compliance and awareness and use DEI+E to create a truly inclusive culture.
At H/L, we established the Human Equity Advisory Council to ensure H/Lers of all backgrounds are respected, recognised, included and engaged throughout the organisation. We want to optimise all of the knowledge, skills and intangible assets that our team members bring to their work, operating through a diversity lens.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, we tapped industry leader, The Learner’s Group, to help us explore what DEI+E means for our agency, specifically. We launched affinity groups built around both professional and personal connections among diverse peer groups at H/L. They’re open to all, and offer support for learning the ins-and-outs of H/L culture, broad career perspectives, discussions on balancing life and work and sometimes, just an excuse to get together, have fun and socialise.
Also, the end of one’s career can be the start of another and we are working to develop the next generation of talent. In honour of H/L family members who recently passed away, we launched both the Josh Nichol and Valerie Bailey scholarships that award high school and college students funds in lower income or marginalised communities to pursue a degree within advertising.
We need to create a measurement framework to ensure we’re progressing on our DEI+E goals. One goal is to create equitable opportunities for external contracts with minority owned businesses. Currently, we enlist third-party auditors to provide a report of our external partner spend across all departments to minority owned companies and set a goal of increasing our spend each year. In 2022, our overall spend was at 7% with a goal of 10% in the coming year.
LBB> What role are clients playing in holding agencies accountable and driving better DE&I (e.g. via RFPs)? Is this something you are seeing or would like to see more of?
Michael> H/L’s clients regularly ask for details on our agency DEI+E practices — from staff representation to programmatic initiatives, as well as shifting partner spend across all departments toward minority owned companies. This is a great step to align with our client partners on a shared sentiment of the importance of DEI+E in our industry.
LBB> We often see DE&I siloed or pigeonholed as an HR issue - what’s the key to ensure that it’s embraced as an agency-wide or industry-wide responsibility?
Michael> Although HR has been involved in every step of the way, our DEI+E strategy and practice has representation from across departments and spanning tenure. This approach allows us to have an open dialogue with varying perspectives to gain deeper insights into building the most effective DEI+E strategy for our agency. It’s also why we don’t have a single lead. We want to ensure the tenets of our initiatives are not only foundational to our internal agency operations, but also baked into our campaign executions, in keeping with our clients’ storied brands.
Particularly, as we start to explore AI tools for our agency, we need to understand the models on which these tools are based and account for any inherent biases. This takes a collective effort from the agency instead of a singular viewpoint or only a leadership approach. For example, a junior level team member creating a consideration list of potential media partners has to understand the need to create an equitable evaluation process.
LBB> What are your thoughts about where accessibility fits in the DE&I agenda?
Michael> This is just as important as any other reason to ensure all have equal access to information. We want every employee to have an equal opportunity to succeed. Creating an environment where we meet learners where they are by providing information and accommodations when necessary for every employee to meet their highest potential. In particular, we’re very aware that a common omission from many companies’ inclusivity practices are the neurodiverse and we’ve taken steps to avoid the same pitfall.
LBB> What resources/platforms/programmes have you found useful on your DE&I journey and would recommend to our readers?
Michael> The good news is that there are plenty of resources and training tools available — from local government sources to LinkedIn. We worked with a leading consulting partner, The Learner’s Group, to help us define what DEI+E meant for our agency; and found that it was helpful to have an outsider peeking in and holding a mirror for us to reflect and enact change.
LBB> The scale of the change needed is so massive that individuals can often feel powerless without the levers to move huge structures. What's a more personal act of positivity that you've seen recently that others could look to as inspiration for change on a human scale? If you’d like our readers to take one thing away from this interview what would it be?
Michael> As things like AI, the Metaverse, Threads and other social media trends take up space in the industry, DEI+E cannot be another metric to simply monitor and report. Ensuring true engagement requires us to look inward and companies should start by ensuring there is a focused goal relevant to their organisations. A simple way an individual can create more positivity and feel more connected to your organisation is just to reach out to others in your company you may not connect with on a day-to-day basis. Getting to know others, and their backgrounds and perspectives can help bring stronger and more human-focused solutions to the table.
