Lindsay Stein- Havas- Social Impact and the Agency

Lindsay Stein is the new chief of social impact at Havas in NY. Havas has been making some big moves around social impact recently and Lindsay is freshly installed in the New York office with the charge to make a difference inside the agency and with clients.Lindsay's started her career in sports journalism but has a deep knowledge of the US marketing communication scene from her stints at PR Week, Advertising Age, and Campaign US.Her last role was with the non-for-profit organization-  "Today, I'm Brave" which unlocks bravery in underserved youth around the world and helps them become our next generation of leaders. Her role will encompass the breadth of social impact including diversity and sustainability and she is keen that this isn't seen as an opportunity to seize competitive advantage and plans to share learnings and findings with agency competitors and even host events on the topic.These are clearly early days, she is less than a month into her role, so it will be very interesting to see where this goes. As we discussed in the conversation this is about having a serious commitment from the leadership of the organization and recognizing that this is a long-term effort- things will not be solved immediately and there will doubtless be numerous challenges that need to be overcome. Her take is to keep things optimistic and positive.