DDB Worldwide’s global chief people officer, Roisin Rooney, and DDB Asia’s chief people officer, Peter Lewis, caught up with Manifest during their visit to the country last month. The duo emphasised the need for a global mindset and diverse perspectives in business while navigating the ‘talent’ turbulence in an ever-evolving industry landscape.

The duo are bullish about the India business. “What brings us to India is the recognition that there’s a great excitement about this part of the world,” said Rooney.

Rooney stated, “There’s so much happening with the teams here, the ways that they’re working with the development of people and with the new leadership. The Phyllis India Project (a comprehensive training program towards sustained gender parity in leadership) has reaped some amazing results for us. So we’ve come to learn, scan and scale and see what of that can be taken back so that others can benefit from it.”

“And at the same time, we’ve got growth and a new generation coming into the workforce here; so we are here to share some of our learnings and shortcuts that we have that can help them. It’s really about partnerships, and about sharing learnings,” she stated.

Rooney described herself as a ‘DDB-lifer’ who has made it through six global CEOs, having spent over 35 years with the network across various roles.

As global chief people officer for the DDB Worldwide network, her role involves optimising DDB’s people-centred activities to ensure continuous growth for its over 8,000 employees around the world.

On what excites her the most after all these years in the HR space, Rooney responded without hesitation, “People. The dynamics and ever-changing nature of people- it’s always about that. And the humanness of who we are and what we do.”

Reflecting on the learnings gleaned during the pandemic, she said, “We saw geographies and borders fall away, and the best of brilliant minds coming together to try and solve business problems. As we go back into more of the new norm, what we’re acutely aware of is, how can we continue to have an international mindset and bring together all those diverse perspectives and the best of our talent to have that fusion of creative combustion.”

“We’re fortunate that we have been able to come here and experience that in person. But it’s also about our leadership here across some of the businesses, holding us accountable to how we deliver more of that back to their talent and enable that,” she further said.

Bringing in the Asian angle to the discussion, Lewis said, “For me based in Singapore, looking after teams in Singapore and Hong Kong, there’s a bit of an immediacy about how we can get the community across our part of the world to build some of these connections moving forward. So it’s a nice opportunity to get more connected with the team, the programs that are in place, and what can we share across the different offices that we have around us to build those connections.”

The company recently consolidation its three creative agencies in India- DDB, BBDO and TBWA\  into Omnicom Advertising Services group. What are the staff restructuring challenges that came along with it, and how was it handled?

Rooney: It’s not that we’ve eliminated brands or we’ve eliminated talent. What we’ve done is brought together the best of everyone - the thinking, accessibility and proximity here in Omnicom house. We know our clients want to simplify complexity. They want efficiencies, they want to get to solutions faster, and they want the best people coming up with ideas. So the thought was - how do we continue to have access to those brilliant minds and not let brands or walls keep us apart to come up with the best solutions? That’s it. We haven’t seen an exodus of talent and I hope we won’t, because we respect the individual and identities and we will continue to respect all those individual identities. And there’s room for all of us.

Rooney, you were elevated from chief people officer for DDB EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) to a newly created role of global chief people officer for DDB Worldwide in 2020. How has the transition been for you so far?

Rooney: It’s, as the Americans would say, like drinking from a fire hydrant (laughing)! It has been a lot to do very quickly, through some very, very challenging circumstances. But also rewarding and joyous at the same time.

It’s a network that I know incredibly well, and I’ve seen it in all its different guises sitting at different seats around the business table. So I hope what I brought into the global role was the recognition of where we have gaps in being credible when we talk to our talent about the opportunities that our DDB network accords them. Where did we need some more of the initiatives, the processes, all of the things that we can put back into the system?

While we may be a US-based holding company, we are a very international group with an international mindset. And having been in a region as large and diverse as EMEA is, I knew that solutions had to come with a lot of cultural nuance and understanding. They had to work across multiple languages. They had to work across different business challenges, and different currencies to achieve growth. That understanding that you don’t just come in and create a solution and push it out - you have to listen to what everybody’s challenges are. And then, as I always say, we only ever build to be 60 or 70%. How people apply it locally, how they augment it, how they make it very real for their people and situations and business is how we make things authentic, who we are and what we deliver at the DDB network.

Lewis, this is your second stint with the network, having served as EMEA strategy director in 2006 for close to a decade, before eventually taking over the people officer – Asia mantle in 2022. The reason behind the shift?

Lewis: When I first joined DDB my background was in strategy, and I worked on global business based out of London. But ultimately, when you’re in a global position, and you’ve got a strategic ambition for the clients you’re working with, the only way you can fulfil that and get the work that you want with the passion and energy you need to sell it to the clients and deliver the magic you’re looking for, is through the talent.

So whilst my mindset was strategy, pyramids and research data that start you off to the strategic part when you get to a different level in the organisation, it comes around to - do you have the people to work that? So you need good people on the ground. Also, I wanted a new challenge for myself and felt that I had moved into a world which was coming away from the strategy part and was really around the people.

I found that interesting. And particularly, how do you inspire and keep younger talent in our industry – that’s where my mind shifted and I knew that this was the space I wanted to get into to focus purely on the talent side of the business.

You spoke about retaining talent. In today’s advertising landscape where attrition is rampant, how do you deal with the challenges of talent retention and employee engagement?

Lewis: Culture is a key part of that - while it may come down to the money that makes it transactional like everybody else. But our points of differentiation are really around the culture that we present day-to-day, making sure that we differentiate ourselves as much as we possibly can in the marketplace. And we have a strong heritage that helps us galvanise teams that we have and inspire the talent to deliver great work while anchoring people and making them feel part of our world. We have also had quite a lot of talent that leaves and joins back, which is a nice sign and a validation that our culture works. Having said that, we know that the heart of our success is through creativity and showing your passion for creativity is still key to pulling people in the door.

Rooney: We don’t own talent. We have to inspire and give culture. We’ve got generations now in the workforce who are more vocal, they have expectations of us regarding what we should be delivering. We’re engaging them and we have to unleash their potential to do the best jobs they can do for the time that they’re with us. And so what that means is that we couldn’t and shouldn’t be transactional in the way that we’re interacting with our talent. We have to be cognisant of the fact that there’s a value exchange and in much the way that we’re looking for the best talent in the marketplace, they’re looking to us to be the best employees. But if we lose sight of the fact that what we’re talking about is intelligent human beings, not commodities and transactions - that’s when it goes wrong.

We also know that we’ve got a talent cohort that wants to be proud of what they’re doing. And so, what do we stand for, do we have a purpose?

Is there a cultural environment and values that are aligned with their values? We ask questions, we listen to their feedback, and then we try and build environments that they want to be part of coming off what they tell us that they need in our employee engagement surveys that we take very seriously. That value exchange we don’t craft in isolation in a boardroom. We work with each other, we co-create and collaborate to hopefully deliver what we can where we can.

As a global people’s officer, with DDB having offices in over 90 countries of the world, how do you approach differences in cultural nuances across diverse regions? Also, how do you ensure the network’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy is incorporated at every location?

Rooney: First of all, you respect the culture. You don’t go in and try and force that this is the cookie cutter, this is who we are and everyone has to behave that way. We continually learn from each other. We’re proud to be a Federalist network that respects difference, whether that’s a difference in us as individuals or whether it’s just a difference in the culture markets and languages that we are all part of.

With emerging AI tech, there are fears of positions and roles becoming redundant in the ad industry. What are your thoughts on it- do you think it is or will be a game changer in the hiring space?

Rooney: It’s going to be disruptive. However, while there’s a lot of noise about eliminating roles, I think it’s going to eliminate certain tasks. If we take that approach and understand the benefits, that’s a positive for us. But, of course, as part of the value exchange, we have got to help our talent acquire the skills and knowledge they need. And if we are clear to them that we’re going to support that development, we’re going to upskill and reskill them wherever they need that support, then it’s a win-win for all of us. So sure, it will be game-changing, but we’re learning as we’re going.

With unique HR challenges across different regions, what’s the biggest industry-wide challenge you’d like to see tackled?

Rooney: We’ve got more and more competitors that have opened up. It is to ensure that our industry will still seem like an exciting and inspiring creative space to come into and make sure that it is accessible and equitable to all, that it’s not elitist - whether it’s gender or race, or whatever it is. It’s down to every one of us to invest in bringing that talent through the system, to be the best role models and to be showcasing our work so that they will want to be part of the craft and celebrate the craft.

Lewis: Here, I would like to highlight the Phyllis program - it’s a fantastic programme run by the team here in India, which is about supporting female talent across the agency network. People who have all gone through their different journeys and how we can learn and be inspired by them. As well as practical skills to help upskill the talent that we have. It’s been a successful program that’s run out of India to across the offices of the network in Hong Kong and Singapore as well. That’s been a new chapter, which is the sharing of ideas across the network.

That’s a great opportunity that’s homegrown here but has been a role model across the region. In time, the framework can travel well beyond the shores of Asia with its proven track record.

What trends or innovations do you foresee shaping the hiring in the industry in the next few years?

Rooney: We’re all chasing great talent. The talent pool is getting smaller because of some of the competition that we’re up against. So again, we need to look at some of the jobs and the roles that we have and eliminate some of the task-based stuff so that we’re freeing up our minds for more of the critical thinking in the craft, which is why we’re in this business in the first place.

I think that we have to double down on being evident about our values and our purpose for why talent chooses to come and work with us because that is the truth. It’s a very different environment from the days when one could go out and cherry-pick who one wanted. Now we’re selling ourselves to talent in the same way that talent is selling themselves to us.

But I think ultimately, at the core, what isn’t changing, is the business we’re in and why we’re in this business. So essentially, as long as we can demonstrate passion or curiosity, and then the brilliance that comes through in the work that we do and the client partnerships we have, I’d like to think that the best talent is always going to want to come and work with us.

This article first appeared in the June print issue of Manifest. Subscribe to Manifest here