Meet The Parents

WHY MOMS AND DADS HAVE SKILLS THAT CAN BE A HUGE COMPETITIVE AND CULTURAL ADVANTAGE

- Katy Hornaday

The best advice someone gave me as a newly minted executive creative director was this: Find your heroes in the industry. So I went hunting for the best among us. I wanted to find those who I could look up to for their work, of course. But I also really wanted role models who were juggling an awe-inspiring career alongside motherhood.

However, my search showed me a new problem. While we all actively lament the shortage of women in leadership, even fewer of these leaders are moms. As a mother of two young kids, I wanted parents I could look up to and learn from. Too often, they tend to disappear from agencies, and not surprisingly. Advertising plus parenthood is a tough equation. Late nights, lengthy travel, exhausting pitches, last-minute assignments, all while raising kids, requires a certain sort of masochist.

This absence of parents was terrifying to me, not just personally, but also as a manager. It should be to all of us. This industry desperately needs the modern parent—both moms and dads. What they juggle on the home front gives them the life and communications skills that go well beyond anything learned in an agency.