Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP has moved to “tighten and enhance” employee anti-discrimination policies and training, in the wake of a lawsuit lodged by a senior female executive alleging one of its top bosses repeatedly joked about rape and made racist comments.
The world’s largest marketing services company is facing a lawsuit lodged by Erin Johnson, the long-serving global PR chief at WPP-owned ad group JWT, alleging that global chief executive Gustavo Martinez regularly made racist and misogynistic comments to staff.
The lawsuit, filed in New York, also claims that when Johnson reported Martinez’s behaviour to executives at JWT and WPP, she was further discriminated against including being excluded from meetings and having her bonus slashed.
Martinez initially denied the allegations but resigned one week after the lawsuit was filed – by mutual consent with WPP – and has been replaced by Tamara Ingram, WPP’s chief client team officer.
On Thursday WPP, which employees 130,000 staff globally, said that it would “tighten and enhance” its anti-discrimination policies.
“The investigations surrounding the recent events at J. Walter Thompson Company are being finalised,” the company said, in a first quarter trading update on Thursday. “Specific policies are being tightened and training programmes are being enhanced in the areas of gender, race, diversity and sensitivity, including unconscious bias, both for men and women.”
WPP went on to say that although the advertising industry is a “little better” than many others when it comes to diversity, it remains a major issue.
“Although it is acknowledged by some that our industry is a little better than some others, diversity remains a key issue with most, if not all, of the major holding companies, at least historically,” the company said.
Earlier this month, lawyers for Johnson also managed to have a sealed copy of a video showing Martinez joking about rape in front of agency executives admitted to the court, and a redacted version blurring the faces of all executives bar Martinez made available to the public.
WPP has provided affidavits from JWT employees in attendance at the meeting in Miami when the video was filmed saying that Martinez’s comments had been taken out of context.
On Thursday, Sorrell said he and the company did not have anything to add about WPP’s decision to beef up its anti-discrimination policies, or on the court case.
“Following those events we decided to do what we have laid out there [in the trading statement],” he said.
