Male advertising executives win sex discrimination case

Last week, a landmark sex discrimination case was won by two men. Until a few years ago they worked for the top London advertising agency JWT.

In 2018, the firm was found to have a 45% gender pay gap, and its creative director gave a speech saying the agency’s reputation as lacking in diversity had to be “obliterated”. That worried some white, middle-aged and male executives, so they raised concerns about their job security.

Two of those executives, Chas Bayfield and Dave Jenner, were later made redundant. Last week they won their case against the firm’s successor company, Wunderman Thompson, successfully arguing they’d been the victims of sex discrimination and had been unfairly dismissed.

We spoke to the creative director Jo Wallace, who made the original speech, and asked her if she had sympathy for the men who’d been worried by what she’d said.