In 2007, the trailblazing strategist Merry Baskin described strategy’s primary role as being: 'the voice of the consumer in the creative process.' As a strategist myself, I still believe our job is to represent the audiences we serve.

But early findings from my PhD research, mapping the diversity of advertising’s most creative teams, reveal a troubling truth: the very discipline tasked with providing proximity to people is often the furthest away from them. Award-winning strategists are disproportionately white, privately educated, middle-class, and neurotypical. A whopping one in four went to private school.

In recent years, we’ve scrutinised other disciplines for their lack of diversity—and rightly so. The 2024 IPA Agency Census reports female creative director numbers slipping from a peak of 30% in 2022 to just 26%. Representation of non-white talent in leadership remains stalled at 10%.

But strategy has flown under the radar. At first glance, strategy departments seem more balanced; 53% female, 47% male. But that's the extent of the IPA’s discipline-level data. So, I dug deeper.

Working with the Faculty of Media and Communications at Bournemouth University, sampling for my quantitative research began with the winners of IPA Effectiveness and Effie UK Awards, thanks to support from those two bodies. The sample is still small, and the project is ongoing, but the initial results are uncomfortably loud and clear. Strategy is an elite club, and the door policy is subtle, yet subjective.

The typical award-winning strategist is older (many over 45) and hence more senior, no surprise there. Positively, 21% identify as LGBTQ+, which represents a higher figure than the 11% industry average reported in the 2023 All In Census. But that’s where the good news ends.

Black strategists are barely present in the award-winning cohort, with a representation of just 2.9% compared to 5.5% across the industry. Yes, part of this may be due to the sample’s seniority, as 45% of the ad industry’s non-white talent is currently stuck at entry level. But that evidences the issue that we are failing to retain and progress diverse talent into senior strategic roles.

The largest skew in the sample was socio-economic background. A staggering 27% of award-winning strategists were privately educated. That’s more than one in four, in a country where just 8% of people attend fee-paying schools. Our strategists sit firmly in the middle classes.

Neurodivergent voices were nearly invisible. Fewer strategists in the award-winning sample reported conditions like ADHD, dyslexia, or autism compared to the wider industry. Again, the sample is small, but the direction of travel is worrying.

What’s even more surprising is the lack of surprise I have encountered when sharing these findings with recruiters, awards bodies, and industry peers. No one seems shocked. People simply shrug and head tilt in agreement – strategists still fit the cerebral, academic, Oxbridge educated stereotype. They often see those who think or work differently pushed into freelance or adjacent roles.

Now I am not arguing that strategists must mirror their target audience. That is neither practical nor necessary. In fact, some of the best strategic thinking comes from reaching beyond your personal experience. Male strategists are delivering exceptional insight on Nurofen’s ‘See My Pain’ campaign from McCann London, and the Channel 4 Diversity in Advertising Award winning E45 work from T&P is a masterclass in how a young heterosexual female planner built her understanding of trans experience. Great strategy is often born from the empathy to understand difference.

But I do believe that without diverse voices in the room, who challenges the insight? Who flags the lazy assumptions? Who says, “you’ve missed something”? Without that diversity of perspective, strategy risks becoming an echo chamber of white, posh, neurotypical thinking. Groupthink is not just a risk, it is real.

In light of these findings, if strategy wants to retain its role as ‘the voice of the consumer’ then it is time for a reality check. As audiences become more diverse and intersectional, we must evolve with them.

That means asking hard questions like: Can we ‘do strategy’ in a way that is more inclusive? Can we break the mould of neat, linear logic in our effectiveness case studies and strategy presentations, to make space for different minds, voices, and ways of working? If we cannot find diversity inside our strategy departments, can we build it through deeper collaboration with creatives, with communities, even with the people we claim to represent? And most urgently: how do we make this discipline, which is still seen as elitist, more accessible to creative thinkers from different classes, cultures, and neurotypes?

If you are a strategist who is doing things differently, I want to hear from you. The aim of my research is to learn from teams that are succeeding because of their differences, and those teams are still, sadly, very rare. So, share your story to help the whole industry realise the creative potential in diversity. Please take part in my research here.  If we want to bring more diversity to the table, we have to be more honest about where we are as an industry and what we need to do to create change.