The ad industry had always been notoriously imbalanced when it came to picking judges to judge major award shows despite the abundance of great women rising up the ranks. In 2013 I decided to change this and in less than 10 days launched the 50/50 Initiative, which was designed to force a hand on all the major award shows and encourage a more balanced split of men and women in juries across the board around the world.
In its first few months I convinced every single award show in Canada to join and a few of the major ones in the US including the Clio Awards and Andy Awards. Nowadays, the effect of this initiative can be seen in the recent changes implemented by all the other major award shows.