Women in the advertising industry have condemned Kiwi ad man Kevin Roberts for his claims the gender diversity debate is over.
Mr Roberts has been stood down as chair of Saatchi and Saatchi over the controversial comments.
He works New York, the city of Mad Men, but when he says the gender balance debate in the advertising industry is over, some say he's living when the series is set - the 1960s.
And Mr Roberts' boss at Publicis Groupe, Maurice Levy, seems to agree.
Mr Levy has placed Mr Roberts on a leave of absence for his comments in an interview with Business Insider in which he said of women:
"Their ambition is not a vertical ambition, it's this intrinsic, circular ambition to be happy."
Former colleagues like Mike Hutcheson have jumped to Roberts' defence.
"I kind of agree with him actually, I thought it was pretty innocuous," he says.
"I'm surprised that it's created the furore that it has and now everyone has got onto the bandwagon and decided to put the boot in.
"But I thought that what he said was pretty right. In fact my wife, who's actually quite feminist herself, thought, 'What's the problem?' And my view is 'look, nothing to see here, move on move on'."
But Sharon Henderson, who runs the agency Federation, says women do not lack vertical ambition.
"I find that phrase incredibly sad and I think it couldn't be more damaging or more wrong," she says.
"It's actually quite a disparaging comment and I'm pretty sure that's probably the one sentence in that entire article that has created such an uproar and upset so many people."
Some in the advertising industry point to the fact many women - like Ms Henderson - run successful advertising companies in their own right, but they say many of their female colleagues have left the big companies because of gender bias and lack of leadership roles.
Newshub.
