Our progress: Advancing Representation

We are committed to not mistaking activity for progress. 

One of the surest signs of progress is growth. We continue to see positive momentum, evidenced by growth in total representation, in our DEI champion communities, and in our DEI and are seeing diversity, equity and inclusion further embedded across our business, and with clients and partners. 

We promised accountability beyond crisis

In addition to investing in our people, in talent partnerships, continually evaluating our policies and practices, building empowered communities, and advancing cultural fluency throughout our business, another critical part of our commitment to progress is having an accountable and measurable approach. This approach is one where leadership responsibility is solidified.

We focus on embedding ownership into the business and hold leaders accountable, including through better understanding both the qualitative and quantitative KPIs which measure and help drive progress.​ 

Learn more about how we are taking action in the full DEI Report.

Representation Progress: Diversity Data 

Gender Representation

We have seen continued growth in the diversity of the dentsu international population across regions. (We will focus on dentsu international metrics in this report while pre-integration with Dentsu Group Inc.) 

Despite many societal and workplace challenges still facing women across the world, our women’s representation continues to grow, particularly in leadership levels. We continue a strong focus on support and well-being for our employees, with intentional growth programs and brave conversations to continue to empower employees and interrupt bias.​ 

At 53.2% women-identifying globally, dentsu international has achieved gender parity across our organization. Our focus is now on maintaining the pipeline through to executive levels by 2025. Those not declaring a gender or identifying as non-binary represent 0.2% globally (highest in the Americas at 0.5%). 

The number of women in Executive levels has increased by 17.5% since last year, at 36.2% globally in June 2022 (compared to 32.5% at this time last year).  

U.S. ethnic and racial representation

Since the May 2021 dentsu Americas DEI Report, U.S. BIPOC (also referred to as multicultural) representation has increased from 27.1% to 31%. This amounts to a total increase of 6.8 percentage points since June 2020, now surpassing the level of our 30%+ 2025 aspirational goal; however, the journey is ongoing, and we continue.  

Strongest growth has been in Asian and Black populations and those who identify with more than one ethnicity (denoted as “ Two or More races“ due to typical classification standards). 

Executive levels are 24.1% multicultural (up from 21.8% last June and 16.9% in summer 2020), nearing our aspirational goal of 25%+ by 2025 

As part of continuing to enable our people to identify in ways most meaningful and accurate to them, in summer 2021 we added “Middle East & North Africa (MENA)” and also expanded the multi-select feature in the race & ethnicity field in our workforce platform, allowing people to select any number of specific ethnicities they identity with, in addition to still having a “Two or More Races” field. 

Canada ethnic and racial representation

As a follow-up to dentsu Canada’s 2021 “Perceptions of Progress” addendum to the dentsu Americas DEI Report, we are sharing updates on dentsu Canada racial and ethnic representation: 

Representation of racialized persons is 51%, an increase of 10 percentage points since last year. The significant growth due in part to increases in data quality with self-identification, through Canada’s Inklusive campaign, in addition to talent partnerships and continuing DEI efforts. The Asian population is the highest represented, as it is in the overall Canadian population.​ 

Data footnotes 

• 2022 data is subject to audit.  
• Data as of July 30, 2022 and July 30, 2021 based on available dentsu international workforce data. 
• Data is not audited by a third-party. Historical numbers may differ slightly due to rounding, corrections in methodology, or changes made through dentsu's organization since that time.  
• Totals may add up to slightly more than 100% due to rounding and also reflect inclusion of non-binary gender identities.  
• Data is based on geographical location (people located within the countries of dentsu’s regional designation). Americas includes 7 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, U.S.), APAC includes 15 countries (does not include Japan), EMEA includes 41 countries. 
• "Executive" levels include C-level, President, Head of roles, General Managers, Executive Vice Presidents and some Senior Vice Presidents. "Management" levels include department Directors, Vice Presidents, some Senior Vice Presidents. "Professionals" includes entry-level and support roles through Senior Manager roles and some Account Directors. 
• U.S. ethnicity and race: we use these race and ethnicity categories to align with the standard categories accepted by the United States government and we maintain this tracking to ensure alignment in our EEO reporting and other widely accepted benchmarks, however, we recognize that offering only these categories is limiting and we have added Middle East & North Africa (MENA) in fall 2021, and we are continuing to evaluate additional ethnic categories to ensure our employees can identify in a way that most accurately represents their ethnicity.