Cultural Perspectives were delighted to be part of the audience listening to the Diversity Delivers - International Advertising Association (IAA) Thought Leadership Breakfast forum panel. The premise of the forum, in partnership with Mumbrella, was to provide senior leaders and various business executives the opportunity to explore how leading brands are leveraging diversity to deliver tangible results to both their business leadership teams and their respective employees. The forum generated something to consider around the challenges and responsibilities we all have around diversity and the importance of diversity in the Australian workplace.
The forum panel included a collective and varied panel of expertise including a strategist from a multicultural communications industry, a researcher addressing diversity issues, board member and corporate managers in diversity and inclusion space. The panel explored how diversity can deliver benefits to our business and generate creative outcomes from a marketing perspective. The passionate outcry from the panel was that there is ‘no minority groups’ and that all diverse groups should be considered as part of the mainstream.
Catriona Noble, Managing Director Retail Distribution, ANZ was a particularly compelling panellist whose views on diversity, whether it be cultural, gender or related to age, were authentic and demonstrated a real belief in the value of diversity. The example Catriona highlighted regarding leadership best practice in her previous experience working in the Asia Pacific region compelled her to instil a culture of diversity in her current workplace.
It is this power of diversity that Cultural Perspectives champions through our work with both communities and clients. When businesses look to leveraging diversity to deliver ROI, it’s the connection we need to build with people, no matter who they are and where they’re from.