Saatchi & Saatchi chairman placed on leave over gender bias comments

He argued the debate on gender bias in the advertising industry is 'all over'

Kevin Roberts asserted that the lack of women in leadership roles in the industry was ‘not a problem’ (Getty)

The chairman of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi has been placed on leave for claiming the debate on gender bias within the advertising industry is “all over”.

Kevin Roberts prompted outrage for saying he did not spend “any time” on issues of gender at his agencies and arguing “the f*****g debate is all over” when asked about gender diversity within advertising.

Mr Roberts argued many women and men are more motivated by the desire to “be happy and do great work” than to move into higher positions of management

“Their ambition is not a vertical ambition, it's this intrinsic, circular ambition to be happy. So they say: 'We are not judging ourselves by those standards that you idiotic dinosaur-like men judge yourself by'. I don't think [the lack of women in leadership roles] is a problem,” he told Business Insider.

“I'm just not worried about it because they are very happy, they're very successful, and doing great work. I can't talk about sexual discrimination because we've never had that problem, thank goodness.”

He also argued gender issues were “way worse” in the financial sector where there are “problems left, right, and centre”.

Roberts' comments have prompted strong rebuttals from fellow ad agency and marketing executives. PepsiCo President Brad Jakeman tweeted he was proud not to be a Saatchi client.

Publicis Chairman CEO Maurice Levy said Mr Roberts had been asked to take leave and its board would decide whether to take further action.

“It is for the gravity of these statements that Kevin Roberts has been asked to take a leave of absence from Publicis Groupe effective immediately,” Levy said in statement.

“As a member of The Directoire, it will ultimately be the Publicis Groupe Supervisory Board's duty to further evaluate his standing regarding gender diversity.”

“Promoting gender equality starts at the top and the Groupe will not tolerate anyone speaking for our organisation who does not value the importance of inclusion. Publicis Groupe works very hard to champion diversity and will continue to insist that each agency's leadership be champions of both diversity and inclusion.”

Like many other industries, the majority of leadership roles in advertising are taken by men. All of the six major advertising agency holding company CEOs are men and a 2014 survey found women make up 46 per cent of the ad industry, yet only 12 of creative directors within ad agencies are female.