“Keep Pushing Forward”: How Tiffany Edwards Leads DE&I Initiatives for Droga5
Droga5 recently held applications for its sixth annual D5in10 Academy, the agency’s internship programme dedicated to helping people with a creative spark who haven’t necessarily figured out where to apply their talents, had the opportunity to build a portfolio in ad school, or gotten a foot in the door at an ad agency in some other way.
Ultimately, Droga5’s goal is to help people get started in advertising by providing them with tools to succeed through hands-on instruction from Droga5 professionals. One of the biggest outcomes of the D5in10 Academy is that students now have a greater sense of confidence and structure in how they approach their creative work, regardless of whether or not they choose to pursue a job in the field of advertising.
In prior years, the program has played a role in several students moving on to creative industry-related careers at companies such as DDB, Publicis, SJR, VMLY&R, Airbnb and more. D5in10 students have also gone into full-time positions as creatives at Droga5.
Spearheading much of this is Tiffany Edwards, Droga5's global head of diversity and inclusion. LBB's Addison Capper chatted with her to find out more about D5in10 and Droga5's DE&I initiatives more generally.
LBB> Tell me about D5in10 – what are its main aims and ambitions, and how does it work?
Tiffany> Our D5in10 Academy was created to help us find untapped and unique creative talent who would normally be missed by the advertising industry. We aimed to remove the barriers of needing to know someone in the industry, having attended an expensive advertising school or needing to make the financial sacrifice of participating in an internship or apprentice programme to get a foot in the door.
LBB> How does it fit in with Droga5’s wider DE&I initiatives?
Tiffany> All of our DE&I initiatives tie back to our outsized agency ambition to put out creative work that positively impacts culture, and we can’t do that without reflecting the full spectrum of humanity. Whether it’s a programme like ‘Take our City to Work Day’, which introduces high-school students to the advertising industry and shows them how every department plays a role in an ad coming to life or a programme like our custom-built ‘Editing and Writing for Equality’ initiative that helps remove bias from our work in real time as it’s being created, our focus remains attracting the best talent from all racial backgrounds, identities and cultures, and constantly evolving our internal practices to foster inclusivity.
LBB> What drew you to the field of DE&I?
Tiffany> First, I stumbled upon and fell in love with the advertising industry, at large. I was the kid who used to cut all of their favourite ads out of magazines and put them in a scrapbook (which I actually still have today), but I had no idea how they came to life. So, when my first job out of college working for The One Show helped me to discover that there was an industry built around making ads, I was thrilled. But as I got more immersed into the industry, and began to learn who the key players were, I also quickly discovered that there were very few people who looked like me. And that led to me wondering why and what I could do to help address it, because if the younger me had known this was an option, I would have pursued it as my career path. And so I built two diversity programmes for The One Club to introduce more diverse talent to the industry— ‘The One Club Creative Boot Camp’ and ‘(W)Here are all the Black People?’—and the rest is LinkedIn history.
LBB> So you carved out a lot of this for yourself…
Tiffany> My career path has been a unique one, because every DE&I role I’ve ever had has been created for, and built by, me. My stint at The One Club allowed me to evolve my roles over the years into becoming its first education and diversity director, and once I discovered my passion for DE&I, I never looked back. Since none of my roles existed before me, I didn’t have a roadmap to follow, and so I believe my specialism lies in using innovation, education and research to custom build DE&I solutions and programs for the organisations I work with. I refer to myself as an intrapreneur.
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?
Tiffany> The frustration is valid. The reality is, DE&I work requires human behavioural change, and humans are terrible at change. DE&I work isn’t just about writing policies and rules, it's about changing people’s belief systems. One of my mentors said that if we really believe something holds value, we’ll figure out how to make it a part of our lives, and I will never forget it. We can say all of the right things and fund all of the programmes, but if those in power aren’t willing to do the personal work, don’t truly see the value of having more diversity in their organisations (even if it's unintentional) and there are no consequences for not making progress, then what's the real motivator for them? DE&I leaders are charged with ‘fixing’ these issues, but it’s impossible for that small group to transform entire organisations and industries without a genuine belief-system change or the ability to apply consequences for lack of progress.
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?
Tiffany> I don’t see hope and progress in one particular industry rather in the people who are choosing to carve their own paths. I think that this is a moment where old models need to evolve or get out of the way, because a new generation of leaders who deeply understand the value of being inclusive—not just from a cultural ‘nice-to-have’ standpoint, but as a business impactor—are rising up, and they’re building organisations that have DE&I embedded into their DNA, and not treated as an extracurricular. Our industry needs to take note of these shifts and begin to rewrite the old model. We can’t recreate the ‘good old days’ of advertising; instead, we need to focus on reinvention and building a more inclusive industry.
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?
Tiffany> The dimensions of DE&I in the USA remain complex and fraught, whether we look at the striking down affirmative action, the attacks on women’s rights and the rights of LGBTQIA2S+ people, or the active attempts of people in power to block the teaching of our racial history to children and to shut down critical race theory trainings.
As a global DE&I leader, it's key to remember that while there may be some core issues and principles that carry over, the DE&I conversations that need to happen in our international offices are very different from what we’re doing in the US. We centre humanity: respecting each other as individuals and encouraging all to have curiosity/learning more about cultures outside of our own, as the key tenants across all of our spaces, then partner closely with our international colleagues for nuanced work related to their current cultural climate.
LBB> In your role, what have been some of the most meaningful projects or policies you’ve been involved in regarding DE&I?
Tiffany> What makes my role meaningful is actually not at all related to what project or policies I’ve created. Why? Because in this line of work, there are as many losses as there are wins, and it can be easy to get discouraged. The meaning comes in seeing the shifts in the individuals I work with and how they apply it to their roles: the moments where people act as allies without prompting, the meetings I sit in where I don’t have to call out a diversity flag because someone beat me to it, the DE&I programmes that are ideated and built by my colleagues who sit in other departments, seeing the increased diversity and decreased stereotypes in the creative work being put out now versus before we began our DE&I journey, and most importantly, the diverse group of individuals who I’m able to support or advocate for.
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?
Tiffany> I’ve definitely seen more clients holding agencies accountable for driving better DE&I over the past couple of years, and I wish more clients would double down on those efforts. As a DE&I leader, I’ve been asked to help fill out RFPs that want detailed information about our DE&I stance and efforts as an agency. My team and I are also invited to sit in on creative and strategy reviews more frequently now and I’ve been invited to more client-facing meetings, as well. The urgency of clients pushing for DE&I has lessened as we’ve moved further away from the inflection points of 2020 and as the long-pending recession has taken focus, but there is still more of a push than in the past. I hope it continues, because if all else fails, money is always a key motivator.
LBB> What resources/platforms/programmes have you found useful on your DE&I journey and would recommend to our readers?
Tiffany> My biggest resources on this journey have been my fellow DE&I leaders who are willing to connect, be transparent and create a safe space for real talk. This work can feel very isolating and challenging on many days, and there isn’t always a playbook to follow (or we’re building it as we go). This is a role that comes with pressure on both sides: an organisation that looks to us to create mass scale change often with limited support, time and resources and a diverse community of employees who are counting on us to advocate for them and make their experiences in these organisations better. Without my fellow DE&I leaders who have acted as mentors, champions, safe spaces and friends, this would feel 100 times harder.
LBB> If you’d like our readers to take one thing away from this interview, what would it be?
Tiffany> This may sound cliché, but keep pushing forward. I fell in love with this industry because I still believe in the power of creativity. There is so much magic that we haven’t tapped into yet because we’re operating under old models and following the status quo. If we all give up and step away, nothing changes; so take a breath, take a break, then jump back into the fray.
