Richards
SAG has tapped veteran ad industry exec Donald C. Richards as associate national director of affirmative action/diversity.
Based in SAG's Gotham office, Richards will report to Angel Rivera, national director of affirmative action/diversity, at SAG's Hollywood headquarters.
Richards joins SAG from his position as president of D.C. Richards & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in multicultural marketing, management, workforce and vendor strategies and tactics. Richards also spent 22 years with Leo Burnett Worldwide, becoming its first African-American VP and senior VP-director of resource development to head global diversity efforts.
SAG said Richards will develop and promote educational programs, conferences, workshops and symposia to raise industry awareness of diversity in programming. He will also assist in overseeing statutory compliance and enforcement of SAG nondiscrimination contract provisions.
"Don's reputation as a diversity pioneer in the advertising industry is well-known," Rivera said. "His vast experience and industry contacts will prove invaluable to our efforts to serve all our members."
Appointment by guild CEO Bob Pisano comes three months after SAG hired Rivera away from his post as director of corporate global diversity at ad agency Foote Cone & Belding. SAG is expected to begin negotiations with the ad industry over its commercials contract in the next several months.
SAG fired its top two affirmative action execs in early 2001, prompting wrongful termination suits alleging racial discrimination. Peter Nguyen settled his action, but the suit by former affirmative action chief Patricia Heiser Metoyer remains in litigation.
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