Universal Registration Document 2023

3. Governance and Compensation - AFR

/ Position as of December 31, 2023
not-included Percentage of women Objective by 2025
Global workforce 51.1% unspecified
Management Board 33% unspecified
Directoire+ 50% unspecified
Management Committee 40.9% unspecified
Key management positions 43.0% 45%
Methods of implementation

In order to achieve this objective, Publicis is continuing its gender diversity policy, which has been in place for several years (see Section 4.2.4 “The five pillars of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policy”). Special attention has been paid in recent years to the promotion and career development of women within the Groupe. An action plan is implemented by the Chief Talent Officers to ensure that there is an equal number of female and male candidates in both recruitments and promotions, including in the final short‑list phase. A more specific plan has been drawn up for countries or jobs where there are fewer women in order to act promote gender equality from the recruitment of junior profiles. Finally, arrangements are made to promote the retention of female talent in order to allow them flexibility in organizing their professional and personal lives, which is also granted to men. The 2023 data can be found in Section 4.2.4, and the history is publicly available on the Publicis Groupe website, in the CSR Smart data section.

Results achieved during the past year

The results show a steady progression, with the target of 40% having been achieved in 2020 for women among the key management positions, which made it possible to raise the target to 45% for 2025.

This is a very ambitious target. The Groupe’s development in technological professions where women are often less well represented is a new challenge in terms of improving gender balance, particularly among managers. The Management Board has implemented cross‑functional actions to achieve the target of 45% women among key executives by 2025, in particular:

  • take this objective into consideration in the CSR criteria included in the variable compensation of the members of the Management Board, as well as in the LTI criteria for the Groupe’s executives;
  • monitor key indicators on a quarterly basis for the Management Board and on a monthly basis in the countries;
  • pay rigorous attention to appointments and promotions in order to have a mix in the profiles proposed and selected;
  • retain women in long‑term compensation programs;
  • include more women in training programs for the leaders of tomorrow.

In addition, for more than ten years, Publicis Groupe has voluntarily chosen to publish interim indicators specific to the Company and its occupations, such as the percentage of women on the Executive Committees of agencies or the percentage of women CEOs of an agency, data supplemented in recent years by the percentage of women leading the Creative, Media, Data and Tech teams, corresponding to the Company’s major business lines (see Section 4.2.4 “The five pillars of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policy”). The VivaWomen! internal network plays an important role in agencies, particularly with younger women, as a space for dialogue, meeting, inspiration and support. The Women’s Forum, a subsidiary of Publicis Groupe, continues through its events and publications to promote the voice and contribution of women to equality issues as well as to the main global social and economic challenges. The missions and activities of VivaWomen! and the Women’s Forum are detailed in the Chapter 4 of this Universal Registration Document.