French advertising giant Publicis has announced that Kevin Roberts, the executive chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, has resigned over his controversial remarks about women in the workforce.
Pubiicis Groupe issued a statement on Wednesday saying that the company's supervisory board and the chairman and chief executive of Publicis took note of Kevin Robert's decision to step down with effect from September 1st 2016, prior to his retirement date due in May 2017.
Roberts, who is also the "head coach" of Saatchi & Saatchi's parent company Publicis, caused a stir when he told Business Insider last Friday that women employees lacked "vertical ambition."
"Their ambition is not a vertical ambition, it's this intrinsic, circular ambition to be happy," he said during an interview focusing on gender diversity in the advertising industry.
Publicis objected to the remarks, saying in a statement on Sunday that they were not in line with its "celebration of difference" and placed Roberts on leave.