Another quarter has passed and we’ve been enjoying the return of in-person events around the world where Grace Blue was invited to speak and moderate discussion to shape the agenda of our industry. We were honoured to attend events such as Campaign360 in Singapore, Advertising Week Europe in London, the IPA Talent & Diversity Conference, the US Marketing Academy and the Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity this last June.
The challenge of recruiting and retaining talent has been a hot topic with every business leader we speak to, as companies grapple with talent shortages and the continued effects of the pandemic on people’s career choices around the world. This pressure is having a detrimental impact on mental health and productivity so in our last Lessons in Leadership we focused on wellbeing with our speaker Sean Hall - read further and watch the video if you missed this session.
Retaining people is particularly critical for employers right now and the need for leaders to be flexible, supportive and inspirational for their teams paramount. Please take a look at the latest post by our colleague, Erin Maxin, on the importance of Employer Branding to help recruit and retain great people.
Other topics we explored were around sustainability and the cost of living.
On the former, we’re excited to say we’ve joined Ad Net Zero, the advertising industry’s initiative to tackle the climate crisis. We are the first executive search firm to put this at the heart of the work we will be doing for ourselves and our clients.
Meanwhile, the impact of the cost of living means concerns are growing about how people will meet rising prices. We’ll be looking closer over the next quarter at what this means as companies look to build the very best teams and employees look to get the maximum return, economically and emotionally, from their working lives.
Last but not least, we are extremely proud to launch, alongside our existing Consumer Brand and Agency Practices, our new Sports, Media and Entertainment Practice led by Tim Palmer. The formalisation of this new practice follows a sustained increase in briefs for Sports, Media & Entertainment clients including Tennis Australia, the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, Scottish Rugby Union and Spotify to name a few.
As ever, we’d be delighted to talk more about this with you and hear your views – just drop us a line as we’d love to hear from you!
Yours,
Juliet Timms & Jay Haines, Grace Blue Founders
