• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, November 4, 2015

Last week at the 3 Percent Conference, an event that champions and aims to increase the number of women working in advertising, Sapient Nitro debuted its "Returnship" program the agency is piloting in its New York and Toronto offices.  

The ten-week program for creatives, technologists and other advertising professions aims to make it easier for those who have been away from the workplace for an extended period of time to seamlessly re-enter. 

The program was created with help from Red Cliff Marketing CD Helene Cote who leads a returnship program for the 3 Percent Conference itself. 

Of the program, one returnee, Carol Hansen who left the business 9 years ago, said that when she decided to return,"there just wasn't anything out there for me. I've really caught up. I get it. I understand the process." She's now developing an app for Mastercard. 

On the importance of the program, Sapient Nitro CEO Donald Chestnut said: "Valuing life experience as much as work experience is important. It's been a blind spot in our culture. We talk the talk about valuing different things, different perspectives. It's time to walk the walk." 

Could this...hold your breath...be the beginning of the insanely youth-obsessed advertising business actually coming to the realization that experience matters and that staffing every agency with 28-year-olds sporting man-buns and lumberjack beards just might not be the best way to create successful advertising for all age groups? 

One can only hope.