"Dear Women of Indian Advertising, Design & Media" Women leaders of the ad world write an open letter

In a much needed and appreciated gesture, women leaders from the media, design, and advertising sector have written an open letter addressing the pain and trauma that all the #MeToo victims had to go through.

In the last few days, we have seen women coming forward with gruesome experiences faced at the hand of veteran industry leaders. With so many accounts of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct, the need for an unbiased, strong, and transparent body is stronger than ever.

In the open letter, the leaders call out to creating an "agency/network agnostic, easily accessible, backed by women leaders, with a singular focus on addressing harassment."

Read the entire letter below....

Dear Women of Indian Advertising, Design & Media,

We have spent the last few days in pain. After reading horrifying accounts of harassment in our industry, we’ve questioned ourselves and each other. We’ve felt sad, angry and violated at the same time.

Any form of harassment is not okay. Period. Nobody should be able to use their power of authority or gender to discriminate, abuse or harass anyone. As an industry, we cannot move forward till the time we can make it a safe space for everybody.

We are aware that each of our companies has policies and practices in place. However, we do feel it will only help to have a platform that is agency/network agnostic, easily accessible, backed by women leaders, with a singular focus on addressing harassment across the Indian Advertising, Design & Media industry, at both network and independent agencies. We need to work towards it as an industry.

We realize our leadership positions come with immense responsibility and therefore can help trigger a change, start a conversation and help bring the talk on the table.

We appreciate the courage of those of you who have come forward.

We also call upon men in leadership positions to help us do this so that both women and men see a bright future here.

We love this business as much as you do and we will continue working to make our industry better and responsible, where we can hold our work and our standards high.

We stand with you.

Signed: The Collective

Tista Sen
Regional Creative Director, JWT

Kainaz Karmakar
Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy West

Swati Bhattacharya
Chief Creative Officer, FCB Ulka

Deepa Geethakrishnan
National Creative Director, Lowe Lintas

Delna Sethna
Chief Creative Officer, Law & Kenneth Saatchi & Saatchi

Ashwini Deshpande
Co-founder Director, Elephant Design

Malvika Mehra
Founder & Creative Director, Tomorrow Creative Lab

Preeti Vyas
Chairwoman & Chief Creative Officer, Vyas Giannetti Creative

Shagun Seda
Executive Creative Director, DDB Mudra

Pallavi Chakravarti
Executive Creative Director, Taproot Dentsu

Lulu Raghavan
Managing Director, Landor

Alpana Parida
Managing Director, DY Works

Team Social Samosa too urges the industry to come forward, and create a body that makes every employee irrespective of their gender feel safe and secure.