At a panel discussion at Advertising Week New York on Tuesday, Singleton Beato, McCann Worldgroup’s global chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, addressed the company’s response to chief creative officer Pierre Lipton’s insensitive comments made during a recent company town hall.

During the panel, called “Female Leaders Reshaping Business and Driving Impact,” in which she spoke alongside McCann North America’s chief growth officer Michelle Tang and Microsoft’s chief brand officer Kathleen Hall, Beato praised Guild’s handling of the situation, saying she is “very skilled at channeling the leader that she is to be present in any given situation.”

The panel was moderated by Campaign US’ creative editor Sabrina Sanchez. 

“Very quickly, she addressed the issue at hand,” said Beato of Guild. “She was very transparent, very authentic and very open. It meant a lot to the people that were in McCann, but more than that, it meant a lot to the people that were outside of the organization watching how this brilliant leader stepped up to take on a challenge.”

The comments come one month after Lipton made his remark during McCann’s fifth annual Day for Meaning on Sept. 14, when the agency holds all-hands workshops, surveys and meetings to discuss myriad issues, including unconscious bias. 

During an online seminar, Lipton, then co-CCO of McCann New York wrote in the comments that he was “so fucking bored” by the presentation. According to McCann New York, the remark was only meant for one individual, but was sent to the wider audience by mistake.

The same day, McCann New York CEO Amber Guild addressed the comment in a note to staff, and brought it up again the next day in a town hall.  Lipton apologized to the agency on September 15, according to McCann. 

In the aftermath of the remark, Lipton took a two-week unpaid leave of absence while McCann New York conducted an internal investigation to determine whether the comment was reflective of Lipton’s leadership and workplace conduct overall. As a result, Lipton was moved out of his role and into a position as global executive creative director for McCann Worldgroup. 

Lipton’s former co-CCO, Shayne Millington, was promoted to be the sole CCO of McCann New York. The shift was announced in a press release about the agency’s appointment of Shannon Washington as McCann boutique agency Gotham’s CCO.

Since the incident, LinkedIn chatter surrounding the issue has been mixed, with some applauding Guild for how she handled the situation and others voicing their disapproval of the decision to shuffle Lipton to another division. In particular, marketer Mosito Ramili, who has never worked for McCann, described the handling as a “poor cover up by so-called leaders who are clearly out of depth.” 

After Ad Age reported on the situation, Ramaili posted screenshots of the article and tagged Guild in his comment.

Promiment industry DE&I leaders, including Walt Geer, chief experience design officer at VMLY&R, came to Guild’s defense, praising her for handling the situation with “class, quickly and with no hesitation.”

“You deserve applause for stepping up and doing the right thing, because I know it was not an easy thing to do and I know a multitude of people will try to come for you…I am here to say thank you for being bold and confident,” he wrote. “You have always stood for Black and brown people, and I applaud you for that.”

“Very often, leadership shows up when things are hard,” said Beato at the panel on Tuesday. “This is really part of our makeup very often as female leaders, being able to be graceful, be respectful of the situation, but handle it.”

Beato, elsewhere in the AWNY panel, said DE&I is not siloed within the network and that McCann’s leadership team “believes that DE&I needs to be part of the end-to-end employee experience and the end-to-end creative product development experience.”

The panelists also discussed the unique challenges they faced as they grew in their careers as female execs, agreeing that it’s worth calling out even small instances of sexism from male peers. 

Microsoft’s Hall advocated for addressing such issues with humor, and McCann’s Tang noted that she also uses these moments, as well as those when her Asian identity is not adequately understood, as opportunities to discuss unique challenges that women and Asian women in particular must face.

As reported in Campaign US’ annual Agency Performance Review, McCann increased its percentage of female leadership to 52% in 2023, up from 46% in 2022. Almost half (45%) of new hires were BIPOC last year. The agency also noted that it has ERGs and employee development programs for BIPOC talent and also has a supplier diversity program to improve its diversity in production.

This article originally appeared on Campaign US.