Barkley has hired Adam Miller as its director of diversity and inclusion, a new role at the agency.
The Kansas City-based shop reached into its own community to hire Miller, a Kansas State University graduate and Fulbright Scholar who comes to Barkley from the higher education world. He was previously a postsecondary coach at Kauffman Scholars and director of the Green Fellowship program at Teach for America, a role he was instrumental in elevating to a national level. He is active in the Kansas City community, promoting diversity through The BrandLab and as a board member of Big Brothers Big Sisters. Miller is also co-owner of The AV Collection, a virtual winery that leverages winemaking as a conduit to give back through various charities and drive inclusion in the wine industry.
At Barkley, Miller will be responsible for recruitment and helping to drive the four initiatives of the agency: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEI+B). Under those initiatives are four pillars, which are represented by groups within the agency: Our Work, which aims to integrate a DEI+B mindset into the agency’s ideas; Educate & Discuss, which seeks to break down concepts of race, culture, society and inequality; Diversity @ Barkley, which aims to increase diverse representation in the agency; and Inclusion and Belonging, where each partner’s value is celebrated.
“Recruitment is more than just offering a referral program. Attracting a diverse population of talent starts with creating a space for people to bring their authentic selves to work every day,” said Miller, “At Barkley, we will be reverse engineering the model of recruitment, retention, and culture.”
Barkley CEO Jeff King said, “By embracing everything that makes our partners who they are and what makes them unique to the world around them, we create the conditions and capacity to help creative, original thinking thrive. As an agency, we believe that equity and belonging are essential to the changes we want to make and the agency culture that we want to foster, and we believe that Adam is the person to help us make those changes.”
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More