1. The Spark Behind the Investigation

In March 2025, a confidential report landed on the desk of Meera Sanyal, an independent organizational consultant and workplace culture investigator. The report, commissioned by the HR Director of BrightWave Advertising Pvt. Ltd., outlined a troubling trend: in the last 14 months, eight mid-level female employees had resigned, citing “personal reasons” in their exit interviews. However, in informal HR debriefs, phrases like “toxic culture,” “male bias,” and “inappropriate behavior” kept surfacing. BrightWave, a Mumbai-based creative agency with 220 employees, had built its reputation over a decade as one of India’s most daring boutique advertising firms. It won national awards for campaigns that celebrated female empowerment and diversity — ironic, given what was unfolding inside its own walls. When Meera began her assessment, she was told by CEO Rajat Malhotra, “We want to understand why our women are leaving — and fix it fast. I don’t think there’s anything systemic, just some misunderstandings.”

Three months later, Meera’s findings painted a much darker, more complex picture.

2. Company Background: The Illusion of Progressiveness

BrightWave Advertising started in 2013 as a three-person startup by Rajat Malhotra and his two college friends, Karan Bhattacharya (Creative Director) and Sahil Mehta (Strategy Head). They built their brand around “bold storytelling for modern brands.” Their early clients included edgy lifestyle products, tech startups, and cosmetic brands targeting young urban women. BrightWave’s brand philosophy — “Disrupt, Delight, Deliver” — celebrated rebellion and creativity. Office walls were covered in neon graffiti, brainstorming lounges replaced cubicles, and late-night ideation sessions were considered a badge of honor. By 2020, the company had grown rapidly, winning clients like Spotify India, Nykaa, and Uber Eats. It had also hired more women — now 48% of total staff, with 30% in managerial roles. But beneath this apparent diversity lay a more uncomfortable truth. As one former employee later told Meera:

“They hired women because clients liked to see them on creative teams. But inside, the boys’ club still ruled everything.”

3. The Early Warnings: Quiet Departures

The first major resignation came from Ananya Ghosh, an award-winning copywriter known for her razor-sharp wit. She had led BrightWave’s viral 2022 campaign “Not Your Fairytale” for a feminist clothing brand. Yet six months later, she quit suddenly, citing burnout.

Her exit didn’t raise alarms — burnout was common in advertising. But over the next year, a pattern emerged. Women in mid-management — senior copywriters, brand managers, and creative strategists — began leaving, one after another.

An internal HR email in December 2024 noted:

“Attrition among female staff in Creative and Strategy is 3x higher than male attrition. Primary reasons cited: work-life balance, interpersonal issues, lack of growth opportunities.”

When Meera interviewed these ex-employees anonymously, however, she found their explanations went far beyond “balance” or “growth.”

“It wasn’t the workload. It was the constant undermining.”
“They joked about ‘women’s logic’ in meetings.”
“Once, my idea was dismissed — then repeated by a male colleague five minutes later and celebrated.”
“You can’t complain without being labeled oversensitive.”

4. The Environment: Masculinity as Culture

From her first visit to BrightWave’s open-plan office, Meera sensed the subtle dominance of male energy. The space buzzed with creative chaos — loud brainstorming sessions, irreverent humor, and banter. But the jokes, she noticed, often had a gendered undertone.

Over three weeks of observation, Meera conducted focus groups, confidential interviews, and email-pattern analysis (tracking the tone of communication in internal threads). She found that “cultural fit” at BrightWave had come to mean “being able to take a joke” — a euphemism that masked casual sexism.

Examples of culture patterns:

• Brainstorming sessions often turned competitive rather than collaborative. Male creative leads spoke 70% of the time, according to Meera’s findings.
• Women’s contributions were either interrupted, re-explained, or credited to someone else later.
• After-hours client dinners were informal and alcohol-heavy, often excluding women or making them uncomfortable.
• Nicknames like “The Princess,” “Boss Lady,” or “Madam Grammar” were used jokingly for female colleagues.

A senior designer told Meera: “The jokes aren’t malicious, but they pile up. You feel like you’re constantly proving you belong.”

5. A Flashpoint: The #ClientParty Incident

The turning point for many came during a client celebration party in August 2024. The firm had just secured a major account with a sportswear brand. Held at a high-end club in Bandra, the event was meant to celebrate the team’s creative pitch victory.

Several attendees later described the night as “fun until it wasn’t.” According to testimonies:

• A senior account manager, Rohit Sinha, made repeated comments about a colleague’s outfit, calling her “our brand’s real ambassador.”
• Another male associate joked that “women in advertising sell better when they look the part.”
• When a female planner tried to call it out, she was told to “relax, it’s just banter.”

The next morning, three women wrote to HR informally, describing discomfort at the event. HR called a “friendly check-in” meeting with the men involved but took no formal action. The incident was quietly buried. Within two months, two of the complainants had resigned.

6. HR’s Blind Spot

The Human Resources Department, led by Pooja Agarwal, struggled with its dual loyalties. While Pooja privately empathized with the women, she admitted to Meera that she faced subtle pushback from leadership whenever she raised culture concerns.

“They say HR is overreacting, that we’re trying to police creativity. But it’s not about policing — it’s about safety and respect.”

BrightWave prided itself on having an “open-door policy”, but Meera found it functioned more like a trapdoor — employees feared being labeled difficult or disloyal if they complained.

A particularly telling quote came from one of the male senior partners: “We don’t need to make everything political. Advertising is about thick skin.”

7. Voices of the Women: Silent Resilience and Exit

Meera interviewed eleven current and former female employees. Their stories formed the emotional core of her investigation.

Case 1: Ananya Ghosh (Former Copy Lead): “After I won the Campaign of the Year, I was told by Karan, ‘You’re our golden girl now — don’t get pregnant, okay?’ It was said with a laugh, but it stayed with me. I realized I wasn’t seen as a creative equal, just a gendered performer.”

Case 2: Shruti Pillai (Brand Strategist): “When I was up for promotion, my manager said, ‘You’re brilliant, but clients find you intimidating. Maybe smile more.’ I’d worked nights on pitches. That’s when I knew the ceiling wasn’t glass — it was reinforced.”

Case 3: Kavya Reddy (Designer)” “I loved the creative chaos at first. But then, in team chats, men would send memes about women drivers or wives shopping. I’d call it out, and suddenly I was the ‘HR police.’ After my resignation, three others messaged me saying they wanted to leave too.”

8. The Company’s Defense

When confronted with these narratives, Rajat and Karan responded defensively.

“We can’t run a creative agency like a corporate bank,” Rajat argued. “We hire for attitude, not rules.”
“People joke, they tease, they drink — that’s agency life,” added Karan. “If someone’s too sensitive, maybe this isn’t the right industry.”

To them, the issue wasn’t misogyny but “fit.”
Meera noted in her report: “The founders equate creative freedom with cultural immunity — mistaking boundary-crossing as a form of innovation.”

9. Data Doesn’t Lie: Patterns of Bias

Meera supported her qualitative findings with quantitative analysis from internal data:

Indicator	Male Employees (below 35)	Female Employees (Below 35)	Male Employees (Above 35)	Female Employees (Above 35)
Average Tenure	4.8 years	2.6 years	5.4 years	5.2 years
Promotion Rate (3-year window)	38%	17%	12%	13%
Exit within 2 years of joining	12%	22%	8%	8%
Reported HR Complaints (2023–24)	2	12	2	2
Action taken after complaint	2	11	2	2
Firing of employee	2	3	1	1

Furthermore, email tone analysis (using linguistic sentiment coding) found that female employees received 30% more “directive” or “corrective” responses than male counterparts, even when their proposals matched in quality.

The numbers confirmed what anecdotes had already suggested: gender bias was systemic, not incidental.

10. The Breaking Point: Internal Backlash

When Meera began sharing preliminary findings in a confidential internal workshop, reactions were polarized. Several male employees felt unfairly targeted. One creative lead said: “This feels like a witch hunt. We’re being punished for being ourselves.” Others quietly acknowledged the problem: “Honestly, some guys don’t even realize they cross lines. It’s habit.” The workshop devolved into tense debates. One senior male manager reportedly muttered afterward, “Now we can’t even talk to women without HR breathing down our necks.” Meera noted in her field notes: “Defensiveness is often the first stage of cultural change. But without leadership modeling accountability, the conversation stalls.”

11. Leadership Response: Optics Over Action

Following media rumors that “a leading Mumbai ad agency faces internal sexism complaints,” Rajat announced an “Inclusivity Drive.” Posters appeared across the office with slogans like “Respect is the New Cool” and “Voices Matter.” An external PR firm was brought in to revamp BrightWave’s employer brand, showcasing testimonials from female employees who described the company as “creative and empowering.”

Yet behind the scenes, many women saw this as performative damage control.

“They hired a diversity consultant, but never apologized,” one employee remarked. “They wanted to fix perception, not behavior.”

12. A Ray of Hope: The Women’s Collective

Despite the frustration, change began bubbling from within. A group of seven women — led by Kavya, Shruti, and two newer recruits — quietly formed an informal network called “WaveWomen.”

They started by organizing lunch discussions, then anonymous surveys. Their goal wasn’t rebellion but solidarity — a safe space to share experiences and strategies.

In December 2024, they submitted a memo to HR outlining five requests:

1. Creation of an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) under POSH compliance.
2. Mandatory gender-sensitivity workshops for all managers.
3. Anonymous reporting mechanism for micro-aggressions.
4. Transparent promotion criteria tied to merit, not personality fit.
5. Mentorship program pairing senior women with junior staff.

The memo was initially met with silence. Then, in February 2025, HR announced that a “Gender Inclusion Council” would be piloted. However, two of the WaveWomen founders had already left by then.

13. Meera’s Dilemma: Reporting the Truth

When Meera finalized her 38-page report in October 2025, she faced a moral dilemma. As an external investigator, her job was to present findings objectively. But the depth of the testimonies made neutrality emotionally taxing. Her report summarized:

Meera’s investigation identified four interconnected cultural failures that allowed the problems at BrightWave to grow unchecked:

1. Normalization of sexist humor: Jokes framed as “creative banter” routinely targeted women, their competence, or their appearance. Over time, this humor shaped what behavior was considered acceptable. Because these jokes often came from senior creatives, challenging them felt risky, effectively silencing women who felt belittled or objectified.
2. Hierarchical silence: The founders and senior creative directors held disproportionate influence, making employees hesitant to contradict or report them. Team members feared being labeled “difficult,” “oversensitive,” or “not a cultural fit”—labels that had previously impacted promotions and project assignments. This power imbalance created an environment where concerns never moved up the chain.
3. Lack of accountability for senior men: Multiple incidents involving inappropriate remarks or boundary-crossing behavior resulted only in casual conversations or “friendly reminders.” No formal warnings were issued. The absence of consequences sent a clear message: high-performing men were exempt from scrutiny as long as they delivered results.
4. Blurred social–professional boundaries: Alcohol-heavy client events, late-night brainstorming sessions, and informal communication channels created grey areas where unprofessional conduct could be dismissed as “team bonding.” Women often reported feeling unsafe or excluded in these spaces but participated anyway to avoid jeopardizing their careers.

Consequences: These root causes led to cascading organizational damage:

1. Loss of female talent: Highly skilled women—copywriters, strategists, designers—chose exit over confrontation. Their departures weakened team diversity, disrupted ongoing projects, and increased hiring and training costs.
2. Reputational risk: BrightWave publicly celebrated feminist messages through its campaigns, yet failed to uphold these values internally. As stories leaked into industry circles, clients and potential recruits began questioning the firm’s authenticity.
3. Declining team trust: Employees—both men and women—began expressing skepticism toward HR and leadership. Teams became fragmented, with junior staff wary of giving honest feedback and women informally warning each other about certain colleagues or situations.

When Meera presented it to the board, the reaction was mixed. Some executives accepted it soberly; others dismissed it as “too academic.” Karan privately told her, “You’ve made us sound like villains. We’re just flawed people trying to make great ads.”

14. The Aftermath: Public Silence, Private Exodus

BrightWave never released Meera’s report publicly. An internal summary was shared with staff, omitting references to harassment or bias. HR implemented one sensitivity workshop and created a POSH committee on paper, but cultural change remained cosmetic.

Over the next six months, four more women resigned — including one from the newly formed inclusion council. The firm’s creative reputation remained intact externally, but internally, morale was fragile.

When Meera reached out to one of the departing women, she said:

“I didn’t leave because I was defeated. I left because fighting alone every day was exhausting. Maybe one day, BrightWave will listen.”

15. Reflections: The Anatomy of a Toxic Normal

As Meera wrapped up her final notes, she wrote an observation that became the epilogue of her case file:

“BrightWave isn’t uniquely toxic — it’s typical of many creative firms that equate informality with freedom. But freedom without empathy breeds exclusion. Culture isn’t what the founders say on stage; it’s what employees feel when no one is watching.”

She reflected on three systemic insights from the investigation:

1. Cultural Dissonance: BrightWave’s public narrative of empowerment clashed with internal gender dynamics. The brand’s feminism was external, not lived.
2. Structural Blind Spots: The absence of formal HR enforcement and power accountability allowed microaggressions to accumulate into trauma.
3. Silent Exodus: Women often leave quietly rather than confront — not from weakness, but because the system punishes those who speak.

As of late 2025, BrightWave continues to win creative awards. Rajat still headlines industry panels on “Diversity in Advertising.” Yet, on Glassdoor and LinkedIn forums, former employees quietly warn job seekers: “Great work, toxic culture.” Meera’s report sits archived in BrightWave’s HR drive, seldom opened but occasionally whispered about. Meanwhile, several of the women who left — Ananya, Shruti, and Kavya — have launched a small creative collective called “Aurora Studio,” built on one principle: “Respect is not a campaign. It’s a culture.” Whether BrightWave learns from its mistakes or continues its silent exodus remains uncertain. But for every company that celebrates inclusion externally while neglecting it internally, BrightWave’s story stands as both a warning and a mirror.

Last week 2 major news platform brought out 2 commentaries

Female Employees Allege Toxic Culture at Award-Winning Advertising Firm BrightWave

Mumbai, May 2025 — A series of allegations from former employees has put BrightWave Advertising Pvt. Ltd., one of India’s most celebrated creative agencies, under scrutiny for what insiders describe as a “toxic and gender-biased work culture.”

According to multiple sources and a leaked internal investigation, several women left the firm over the past year citing persistent gender discrimination, casual sexism, and a lack of action against inappropriate behavior by senior male staff. The firm, known for its high-profile campaigns promoting women’s empowerment and diversity, now faces accusations of hypocrisy and workplace harassment.

The leaked report, prepared by independent consultant who was auditing the firm and its practices, Meera Sanyal, highlights “a pattern of normalized sexist humor, exclusion from informal networks, and managerial insensitivity toward complaints of misconduct.” It also notes that the attrition rate among female employees was nearly three times higher than that of men.

BrightWave’s management has denied systemic bias. In a statement to The Daily Ledger, CEO Mr. Malhotra said, “We take workplace culture seriously and have initiated steps to strengthen inclusivity and compliance under the POSH Act.” However, several employees claim the response has been largely “performative,” focusing on public image rather than internal reform.

Industry observers say the controversy reflects a larger pattern within India’s advertising sector, where informality and long working hours often blur professional boundaries.

As one former creative lead told the paper, “They made ads about empowering women, but inside the agency, women’s voices were constantly dismissed.”

While no formal legal complaint has yet been filed, the episode has reignited debate about gender equity and accountability in the country’s creative industries.

Headline: Award-Winning Ad Agency Faces Allegations of Toxic Culture and Harassment

Mumbai, March 2025 — One of India’s most celebrated creative firms, BrightWave Advertising Pvt. Ltd., is under intense scrutiny following multiple allegations of workplace harassment and gender bias. The controversy erupted after a leaked internal report, authored by an external workplace consultant, surfaced online, detailing a “pattern of sexism, intimidation, and silent exits” among female employees.

According to the report, at least eight mid-level women professionals resigned from BrightWave in the past year, citing reasons ranging from burnout to hostile work culture. Interviews revealed recurring instances of inappropriate comments, exclusion from key projects, and dismissive behavior from senior male staff. The firm, known for its feminist ad campaigns and inclusive branding, now faces accusations of hypocrisy from former employees and industry observers.

The investigation highlights a disturbing disconnect between BrightWave’s public image and internal practices. Former copywriter Ananya Ghosh, whose award-winning campaign celebrated women’s independence, described the workplace as “a boys’ club disguised as a creative hub.” Another ex-employee alleged that after a client party incident involving sexist remarks, “HR conducted informal talks but took no real action.”

In response, CEO Mr. Malhotra released a brief statement denying systemic wrongdoing: “We take these concerns seriously and are committed to maintaining a respectful environment. However, our culture has always encouraged open dialogue and creativity.”

Industry insiders, however, suggest that the company’s response has been largely performative, with diversity campaigns launched for optics rather than reform. As the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and women’s advocacy groups begin reviewing the case, the situation at BrightWave has reignited a broader debate — can creative freedom ever justify a culture of silence and exclusion in the name of innovation?

Assume you were hired as a CHRO in BrightWave Advertising. You were asked to validate the sanctity of the report by undertaking an independent study of your own. In this context, explain the following:

1. How would you create the research design? Elaborate with appropriate justification.

2. How would you plan the data analysis? Elaborate with appropriate justification.