Words Can Cost You Your Job
Former Saatchi & Saatchi chairman Kevin Roberts quit after causing furor when he said women lacked ‘vertical ambition’
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Last July, Kevin Roberts, then-chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, was hosting a 50-person birthday dinner for his daughter-in-law at his home in the U.K.’s Lake District when he got a text message.
An interview he’d given to Business Insider weeks before had hit the Internet. In it he commented that the gender debate in the advertising industry was “over” and that many women lacked “vertical ambition.” The story was trending fast on Twitter.