Tiffany R. Warren, Senior VP, Chief Diversity Officer at Omnicom Group and Founder & President, ADCOLOR®

James Kotecki of C Space Studio speaks with Tiffany R. Warren, Senior VP, Chief Diversity Officer at Omnicom Group and Founder & President, ADCOLOR®

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm James k Techie. You're listening to the C
Space Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders
from c ES. Hi. I'm James Kotechi here in the
C Space Studio at cs and joining us for the
second year in a row. Tiffany R. Warren, s VP

(00:23):
and Chief Diversity Officer Omnicom Group. Hi, thanks for being
having me back. So let's talk about this year and
last year. Last year you said about diversity, we're better,
but we haven't gone far enough. Yes, So how about now?
That's a tough question because what I pull into that
is everything that's happening in the world. You know, I
live in New York and in the recent headlines, there's

(00:44):
been a lot of anti semitism. There's a lot of
divisiveness that's coming from the top. And so I think
we're we are making better choices about hopefully being kinder
to each other on a personal level, but on a
societal level, I think we've taken a couple of steps back.
Last year you also talked about corporate America taking the
leadership role on issues of diversity and inclusion and maybe

(01:07):
just being kind and nice. Um, do you still see
Corporate America as the kind of vanguard of this, and
are there optimistic signs in that realm that things are
going in the right direction. Yeah, No, I definitely still
think that is true. I think even more so because
you have employees that are feeling and seeing and being
affected by what's going on in the world, and they're
coming into work, and work becomes a safe place, it
becomes a refuge. And so I think it's the responsibility

(01:29):
of UH companies, marketing organizations, advertising agencies, UM and the
like to provide a culture a safe a safe space
because if you provide that, you'll get the best work
out of your UM, out of your talent. Are there
ways in twenty nineteen, as we had now into that,
you see companies are just still not getting it kind
of obvious ways they're doing it wrong. Yeah, I think

(01:52):
you you've seen headlines in different companies, but people out companies,
excuse me, pour a lot of resources into great conferences
and e r g s and things that are helping
the culture, but they're not taking care of the systematic issues.
So if these employees or talent are coming back from
a company sponsored event but their manager is not supporting
or promoting them. There's really a conflict of interest there.

(02:14):
So you know, the resources should be spread equally, not
just you know, sort of the nice pr things, but
also the internal systematic changes that need to be made.
And how much can culture really change? I mean, imagine
there's a couple of theories about it. Right. One theory
is you just hire the right people and they organically
create the culture and you can't really change people that much.
And other is you could have kind of top down

(02:34):
events or conferences or trainings, but maybe do those do
those changes last? So I guess this is a fundamental
human nature kind of question at the basis, which is
like how much can people really change? Yeah, I mean
I do I see what you're saying, But I do
think that, um, you know, diversity, equality and inclusion within
corporations is a fast moving train. I think people think
it's static. So let me just apply the training and

(02:56):
let me just do the implicit bias conversations and everything
will be well and it will last, you know, it's
like a year or ten years. But you have to
think about people are coming and going in a company,
and so you have to constantly keep this at the
top of everybody's mind and model it from the top down.
But I also think there's a huge amount of people
in the middle that need to be supported in their

(03:18):
efforts to change the culture. And sometimes people focus on
entry level and they focus on the C suite, but
they forget the middle and the middle is really what's
going to move and change a culture, you know, ultimately,
and what kind of support do they need? I mean
beyond just um, you know, HR and culture. But you know,
I've really seen a lot of interest in CSR, so

(03:38):
essentially corporate social Yes, and so I see a lot
of the middle wanting to represent the company in a
really strong way externally and then they bring that hope
and they bring that good will back into the company
and again it allows them to be more productive. What
is a better argument for diversity inclusion equality? That it
is the right thing to do or that is a

(03:59):
it is a smart business thing to do. Those are
two talking points that have been making the rounds for
about thirty years. UM and I think the right when
you say it's the right thing to do, you minimize
it and it makes it like a charitable thing. And
when you say it's um, when you say it's a
business driver immediately you have to make sure that you
have results to prove that. But there's so many studies
HBr mackenzie um that will tell you from a gender

(04:21):
equality and from from a diversity and inclusion standpoint that
when you have different minds and different ways of thinking
and people from different cultures and communities, it provides a
richer environment for growth and for innovation. There are a
lot of themes CS and one of them is artificial
intelligence and has been for a while something that I
don't think we really talked about this last year, but

(04:42):
certainly you see headlines around bias and artificial intelligence and
where do your what is your leadership effort kind of
playing on that, and what's your thoughts on that. I
haven't touched that so so much in my area of interest,
but it's something that fascinates me and that I'm always like,
you know, trying to read up on so that I
can be ahead of the curve, you know, if that
comes my way. But yeah, there's real biases. I mean,

(05:02):
just simply put, when I go and wash my hands
in the bathroom, sometimes this sensor doesn't read my skin color,
and so I'm not getting the soap or I'm like
getting the water, and so you know, it can have
an effect on just things as small as that, two
things as big as um. There's an app that restores
um old family photos, and so I put some of

(05:24):
my family photos through it, and I got back a
completely different human because there isn't enough data for people
of color in that app to make um the corrections
that need to be made. So you know, you want
to restore a picture of your grandfather, but it comes
back as a different person that has an emotional, you
know impact dota. It seems like so much of the

(05:44):
bias that can come into these systems does come from
the training data. Right. It's not an insect exactly. It's
not necessarily someone to furiously trying to make this happen.
But the data that people have is just it's just
not representative. So is there a role for maybe non
technical people to be making strides and syria or speaking
out or making sure that the data is more inclusive. Yeah,
there's a lot of great um knowledge out there about

(06:06):
this and and really strong arguments on either side. But
one thing is clear. If we don't get ahead of
this right now, then there's gonna be a whole group
of people that are going to be left out of
the next wave of technology that will include artificial intelligence,
even five G. So you know, I think it's important
and imperative that UM, those that are making products and
building companies based on this UM bring in every sort

(06:28):
of mind to make sure that we avoid algorithms that
leave people out. And that's a different kind of bias
that you know, UM, I don't know if we're prepared for,
but we should be. You also mentioned five G. What
are your concerns there about how that could go the
wrong way? Now, this is a funny, funny note. I
just learned about five G yesterday, even though it's on
my phone, but learn like what it's, what it's capabilities are.

(06:50):
And it's really really exciting because you know, we had
a wave where each G brought us a different, UM
easier aspect of life. And so now you could be,
you know, sitting at home and enjoying a concert and
like the form of a holograph like that to me
is really cool. But then what do how does you
know bias and AI and artificial intelligence play into that

(07:12):
when you have you know, just thinking about music. UM.
The top musicians being UM really those that come from
UM different cultures. So you know, I I I'm excited,
but I'm I'm hopeful that this next wave of technology
will include more people and not exclude talking to Tiffany
or war in the Chief diversity Officer Omnicom group. That

(07:33):
title chief diversity officer, What do you think about that title?
Is the is the long term goal that we will
never need that we won't need that title eventually at
some point. Yeah, I get that. I literally have gotten
that question since um the first day I became and
I feel very un original then, but it's not you know,
it's not un original. It's really important because sometimes I
answer it differently every time. But if you think about

(07:56):
is there a need for a chief creative officer chief
financial officer? People often say diversity is a responsible of everybody,
responsibility of everybody in the company, and not to some
extent is true. But you still need a leader that
can build consensus. And so just like you need a
leader to build consensus around financial concerns in your company
or creative output, you need someone who can build consensus
around diversity, an expert, a strategic mind. UM. Often you

(08:19):
see hires made just based on uh, people's you know,
skin color, and and not thinking about the strategic output
of this role, because it really does matter when you
have a client who's like, I'm not going to sign
an M and A until we figure out how to
include supplier diversity or diversity UM into the the original

(08:39):
contract UM that a company signs. So it is a
it's a really really crucial role. UM. It's a fairly
newish role and the last maybe twenty years, and so
it's ever developing. Like when I got hired, I had
to create the role. I had a blank canvas UM.
So every day, like if you ask me, like, what's
my role, it might be different month to month, UM,
but it's still very very important. And you're also the

(09:00):
founder of ad color. We tell us about what that is. Yeah.
Add color UM is actually celebrating its fifteenth anniversary in
UM and it was founded fifteen years ago, almost fifteen
years ago to really honor people of color and advertising,
marketing and media. That was the goal, like have a
have an award show what has grown into as a movement,
And what we found is that when you keep diversity

(09:22):
and inclusion at the center of the conversation, so many
wonderful things happen, and so it started out as an
award show. Now it's a conference that hosts UM close
to eight hundred people every year. UM. We honor people
from different backgrounds in different industries. But not only that,
we bring in thirty young professionals who were one to
three years in their career when we provide them with

(09:43):
professional development and create a network that's gonna last a lifetime. UM.
I know there's so many different elements to diversity, are
different ways of defining diversity. UM. You know last year
even mentioned military veterans, which may not be the first
thing that comes to mind even that. UM. So you know,
all manners of orientations and racial diversity, religious diversity, etceter Uh,
are there is there an element of diversity that's on
your radar screen that's maybe not in the general consciousness

(10:04):
that you think will kind of bubble up as a
as a new vanguard of diversity. I think within the
groups you mentioned, I'm speaking specifically about what we've done, UM.
You know, not only oncom but at add Colors. We
created these UM community groups that have bubbled around UM
cultures that may not be at the center of of
of many conversations. So this year, our thought is to
launch something around um Arab, Mina and Muslim because when

(10:29):
you look at marketing and when you look at advertising,
they're really completely almost missing UM. So it's it's very
exactly and so it's really important that we hear and
understand and feel what their concerns are, but also understand
their culture that's coming directly from them and not filter
to us through UM the media. So I'm really that's
what I'm really most excited about, is to bring attention

(10:51):
to that group and then hopefully that will have an
impact on marketing and advertising in the future. I want
to make sure I don't miss this question about corporate
American social instability, because even though we talked about it earlier,
I didn't want to ask. You know, when you talk
about corporate America making social progress, there will be people
in corporations to say, I can't risk doing X initiative
because I can't be political because politics is you know,

(11:14):
is obviously part and parcel of this, and even things
that aren't meant to be perceived as political in this
day and age can be perceived as political. So how
do you respond to them? That's a great question. Last
night at an award ceremony for Advancing Diversity Hall of Fame,
we had this exercise where we had to either go
on one side or the other depending on how we felt,
and the prompts were, um, love and fight, which was interesting,

(11:37):
and so I stayed in the middle. Some people went
all the way to love, some people went all the
way to fight, and I stayed in the middle because
I thought about the civil rights movement. Right on the surface,
it was marching, it was protesting, and and some fighting
obviously between people who had different ideologies. But at the
core of that movement and some of the more modern movements, um,
there's love, and so I think that you know, there's

(12:00):
there's there's a political aspect, but there's never a risk
when you're on the right side of things. So that's
my answer. You call yourself on your Twitter, But I
believe in last year in our talk a hope dealer,
what are your hopes for the year ahead? Um, well,
you know, I gave myself a new another new title,
because every year I have a goal to figure out
and pinpoint exactly who I am and what I stand for.

(12:22):
And so I now feel like I'm more like an
elevation specialist, and so my job is to help elevate
other people's dreams and conversations about diversity and inclusion. And
so my goal for this year is to continue to
push the conversation forward, even if it's uncomfortable, so that
from that discomfort comes change. And so yeah, my my
words for are elevate, radiate, and dominate. Well, thank you

(12:47):
for elevating, radiating the conversation right here with us in
the Space studio. Tiffany s VP, Chief Diversity Officer on
Become Group. Thank you so much, Thank you. This podcast
is in partnership with the iHeart Podcast Networks