J. Walter Thompson (JWT) CEO Gustavo Martinez officially stepped down a week after a lawsuit accused the former executive of repeated sexist and racist behavior, including calling Black people “monkeys” and “apes,” referring to Jewish people as “those f****** Jews” and telling at least one female employee he wanted to “rape [her] in the bathroom.”
The accusations highlight the advertising industry’s long-standing diversity problems. JWT’s parent company, WPP lists only 23 percent women on their board, and there is no webpage for senior executives. And on JWT’s site, of more than 150 employees listed under its “People” section, less than a third are women and just one person is Black.
J. Walter Thompson is an advertising agency headquartered in New York and has nearly 10,000 employees in more than 200 offices in 90 countries,according to WPP’s company profile.
