Double Gold at the PM Awards for Lesley Ohene as Agency Champion and Diversity & Inclusion at VCCP Health
This year at the 36th annual PM Society Awards, we were proud to win Gold for Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) in internal communications – and even more proud of our own Lesley Ohene for being named Agency Champion.
Agency Champion is a category designed to highlight and celebrate individuals who drive healthcare agencies and their work forward. People who symbolise what good healthcare communications is all about: passion that makes a difference.
It is no surprise to us that Lesley won. As a first generation Black British woman, she has experienced racial inequality and has felt unseen and unheard, both in the healthcare arena and in the advertising industry. The events of 2020 gave Lesley the courage to speak up and drive change within VCCP.
She believes that D&I is everyone’s responsibility and has found ways to engage us all in the conversation; setting up a book club, running a survey to assess the views and experiences of our team, and working with senior management to define our D&I strategy. She has also contributed to articles to raise the profile of D&I in the marketing industry. Lesley also organised and chaired Celebrate Black, an event that gave a platform to spoken word artists from underrepresented backgrounds and helped the agency embrace and celebrate diversity.
Lesley works tirelessly to educate and inspire our team and helps VCCP Health become an agency that creates stronger, more authentic and representative healthcare communications. With her drive and passion, Lesley has spearheaded the formation of VCCP Health D&I team and our internal D&I campaign – resulting in winning Gold at the PMs for D&I in internal communication.
Formed as part of VCCP’s D&I Collective, The VCCP Health D&I team’s campaign [Hyperlink D&I video] to champion diversity and change the way we work has already had a remarkable impact. The campaign includes many different angles and approaches that combined to drive tangible change in our agency. Every week, the D&I team gets everyone thinking and motivates us to re-evaluate our current way of working. You can find out more about our D&I initiatives in this short video.
We still have work to do to push forward our culture and creative output – but we’re already seeing change and are delighted this has been recognised with these awards.
