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DORA OSINDE Q&A

What role does collaboration play in your creative process?

It’s super important to me. A topic I brought up as part of my first big talk to the employees of Ogilvy Germany, was that we can have a tendency to count out the Finance people a little bit, or not be friendly to Office Management, which I think is horrible. A great example is from the album Rolling Stone magazine voted the best of all time: ‘What’s Going On’ by Marvin Gaye. I started digging into the history of that record a little bit, and found out how many people it took to make it… apparently it was over 100!

So I think collaboration is the only way to do something of importance. Find a good group of people and be able to manage them and guide them and take them on the journey.

  Why do you think it is so important for diverse voices and experiences to be represented in creative endeavour?

I don’t even care how people feel about the ethics or morality of that question! What we do care about [at Ogilvy] is some level of business success, and we are seeing the data around diverse opinions and teams delivering this. If you bring together rooms of people with the same guy who went to the same uni, is dating the same girlfriend and they’re all driving the same car, they will very likely come up with the exact same answer. It has never been that hard to actually find different types of people and bring them into the organisation. What’s important is managing those people and keeping them happy. I think to do that successfully, it requires a lot of respect and humbleness. All of these things are required to create a space where people feel comfortable speaking.

Sometimes, a hire that I think is amazing and has a super interesting viewpoint, the second they walk into a meeting room, nobody wants to listen to them. It’s on me as a leader to create an environment where people feel they’re a relevant part to what’s going on.

I think that’s maybe one of the things in this world that might be easier for me as a black woman. My presence changes the dynamic in some of these rooms. It maybe makes it feel a little more attainable to one day have a similar position. So I think that helps. There are so many ways to encourage people to participate and talk, but the most important bit is that you have to model that behaviour yourself.

 How is tech influencing your own creativity, both now and in the future?

I think AI and its impact on our jobs is maybe a little overestimated at times. I look at it the way I look at Photoshop. When Photoshop came into the picture, it didn’t mean that we needed fewer graphic designers. That didn’t happen. On the contrary, we have more people doing this kind of job now and they’re doing it better and faster than ever. That’s exactly the way I look at AI. In terms of creative work, it’s already allowing us to give better work to our clients more quickly. I don’t see it changing the need for good creative talent.

My biggest use case is when I started talking to ChatGPT like my little assistant. I just speak random thoughts into my phone. I get out of a client meeting or a briefing and I’m just giving my unordered ideas into ChatGPT… and I get back a nice list of bullet points that allows me to continue my work very quickly.

What creative projects have you got coming up that you’re particularly excited about?

I think I’m going to get back into podcasting. I just like having a side project that’s about doing something creative and fun, not about making money. So that’s gonna happen for me.

What I’m excited about – which doesn’t mean I’m working on it! – is the overall entertainment landscape. I think we’ll start to see a lot of interesting creator-led entertainment networks, maybe for different niche audiences. I also think there’ll be new and interesting entertainment faces. For example, ‘Call Her Daddy’ host Alex Cooper just signed a $100 million deal with SiriusXM. I think this is a very interesting space where we can see the power of the individual creator that has a skillset in editing, where suddenly, out of your bedroom, you’re building the start of a media empire. I think that’s a super fascinating space.

Dora will be appearing at Blend Barcelona on 8th November 2024. She is a panelist in a Studio Session discussing what it takes to be a creative leader and forward thinker in 2024.

 Interview conducted on 13th September 2024.

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