Amy Kathleen Downes

THE STORY

Woman Up is an internal initiative for diversity and gender equality at R/GA London. Founded two years ago by a group of women who looked around and saw exclusively white men in management, it's become a powerful agent of change.

Since its inception, the parental leave policy has improved immeasurably, we've committed to Free The Bid and implemented procedures around recruitment – mandating at least one woman on every shortlist, in every interview and on every pitch. But we ain't done yet.

What we want, is better representation in both our work and our ranks. We want a compassionate working culture. We want honest, ego-free, inclusive conversations to happen. And we want everyone who takes part in those conversations to come away having learned or understood something new. It’s so vital to engage with other perspectives, otherwise we’ll all find ourselves in a state of constant surprise and outrage.

If we’ve got to make a business case for why a diverse workforce is a profitable one, we will. Because we can. Because there are solid stats to back us up. Because we make our money off innovation, and if your dice has a 1 on every side, you’ll never roll a 6 no matter how many times you shake your fist.

It’s lonely in a silo, but it’s fun at a party.

THE WORK

I'm the copywriter-in-residence for Woman Up. From brand guidelines, to tone of voice, community management, press releases and project scripts – it's all my great and terrible responsibility. But the amazing thing about the collective, is that each of us have multidisciplinary roles.

We all put in the hours, but it’s often the case that the women in the room have to graft TWICE as hard to be heard and according to the WEF 2017 Global Gender Gap Report, equality is over 200 years away. So for International Women's Day 2018, alongside the Head of Motion and two wicked-good designers, I concepted, art-directed and photographed a campaign that chose to champion our very own. 

We asked each woman in the London office to nominate another, selecting three words that best describe their chosen colleague. We then took portraits and took over the screens – giving these amazing people the acknowledgement and credit they deserve, yet don’t always receive. 

But it's not just once a year that Woman Up pulls up a chair, we work 365 as consultants, mediators, content creators, agitators and taste-makers.

For more details, check out our website and our Instagram, where I occasionally play fast and loose with the captions.