Expanding our People Team with a Focus on Inclusion and Culture

Announcing the expansion of our People Department with the hires of Courtney Burns, Executive Director of Talent and Culture, Jill Savage, Director of Resource Management, and Ash Ramirez, DE&I Lead. The three new hires join our People Department, which grew from one person in 2020 to now a total of nine across DE&I, talent, recruiting, leadership and development, resourcing and human resources.

In addition to Burns, Savage and Ramirez, The Many’s People department has expanded throughout the last year including the hires of Johanna Penry, People Experience Manager, Serena Hutton, Recruiting Lead, Sharon Gi, Senior Resource Manager, Maya Morris, Talent and Culture Coordinator, and Samuel Reyes, People Operations Coordinator. Tim Cyrol continues in his role as Human Resources Director since 2015, with Davis Jones leading the department as Managing Director, People.

The three new hires solidify our commitment to some of the industry’s most pressing challenges—diversity and talent acquisition and management—with a focus on building internal systems and programming that rally the entire agency to work together and find productive and impactful solutions.

“We have a high performance culture at The Many, and to achieve our ambitions collectively, we are focused on unlocking the potential of each individual and team at the agency—it’s a growth mindset that succeeds here, which means we often operate outside or at the edge of our comfort zones,” said Davis Jones, Managing Director, People. “The role of this team is to ensure we are building through conscious and intentional recruitment strategies, fostering talent through learning and development opportunities, and providing the tools and flexibility to thrive in the changing work, business and cultural climate. We strive to be a force for progress and to achieve that, it takes each and every one of us.”

Burns joins The Many from Huge where she served as VP, Global Recruiting. At The Many, Burns will further build the agency’s go-to market strategies and recruiting processes as well as oversee the agency’s growing DE&I programming. This includes a concerted effort to hire and retain diverse talent and develop Recruiting as a strategic practice at the agency to proactively help stabilize the industry-wide issue of burnout.

Courtney Burns: “Building an inclusive culture begins with looking at the current makeup of our teams to intentionally address diversity and gender gaps during the recruiting process, ensuring candidates have a best in class interview experience and can see growth potential for themselves at The Many. At The Many, we’re committed to changing our go-to-market strategies, building equitable pipelines, evaluating both potential and experience, and being transparent about our numbers and the areas we need to improve.”

Previously Director, Resource Management, at Saatchi & Saatchi, Savage will develop the agency’s resource management practice by taking a qualitative and quantitative look at staffing to not only build efficiencies, but also identify learning and development opportunities across departments based on a mix of talent management and staffing, and clear financial planning for both the agency and its employees by creating clear pathways to success.

Jill Savage: “I came to The Many to seize the opportunity to install a human-based approach to Resource Management. It’s not just excel documents with numbers, there’s the human (qualitative) aspect of resourcing that can get missed if you don’t work deliberately with the people in mind. It’s exciting to be somewhere that this piece matters.”

A graduate of MAIP and MPMS, Ramirez brings a breadth of forward-thinking DE&I experience from Wieden + Kennedy, Droga5, Digitas Health, and Condé Nast. In addition to creating programming that celebrates all diverse identities and empowers individuals to be at their best, they are spearheading the launch of The Many’s Employee Resource Groups and supporting the agency’s efforts to move the entire industry towards greater inclusivity and representation both in the workplace and in the output of the work.

Ash Ramirez: “I came to The Many not only because I saw potential, I saw the commitment and the willingness to get uncomfortable. Diversity work is an ongoing industry problem and one that cannot be remedied overnight. It takes everyone, and I mean everyone across levels and departments to create a truly inclusive culture. When it comes to this work I was looking for a partner that heard and supported the efforts I would bring to the agency. I am proud of our efforts so far and it’s only just the beginning. I very much see The Many becoming the standard within the ad industry when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion.”

We are excited and grateful for the role that each of these people play in supporting our success. This won’t be the last you hear!

Also, catch the news on Campaign, Ad Age, and Adweek.