"Exciting, progressive and another significant step forward for the UK's ad industry". Richard Miles, Creative Director of Therapy is describing the power of Talk Talk embracing LGBT representation. Yet his words could just as easily apply to the impact of his own creative career.

As an active member of PrideAM, Miles is on the vanguard of a new breed of creatives ensuring greater representation and cultural currency in advertising. The group's annual Creative Review provides a much needed roadmap for change for the industry, with a thoughtful analysis of the brands getting it right and those missing the mark when it comes to LGBT+ representation.

The efforts come in the midst of a fundamental reappraisal of gender constructs in society, with significant implications for the industry. According to the Office of National Statistics, the UK government defines gender as “a social construction relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity or femininity; gender identity is a personal, internal perception of oneself.” The personal nature of gender is something that is not openly or often discussed within the industry or even in society. Gender is perceived to be something affixed to you by societal norms.

As Miles explains people’s personal gender decisions should be respected by the organisations they work for and by the brands that serve them. And they’re not. What Miles feels is that “leaders have to stand up. All you have to do is something.”

Putting this mantra into practice he is launching a new app called The Right Pronoun, which was designed with consultation from Brand Advance agency and the trans youth charity Mermaids. As Miles outlines, it’s “like spellcheck for gender pronouns.” All an individual does is copy and paste the relevant text whether that be email, induction leaflet or press release, and the app will highlight every pronoun. It then offers you a selection to choose from a list of 44 gender neutral pronouns sourced from around the world.

Miles, who himself includes his chosen pronouns in his email signature, reveals that many people have been curious as to why he has decided to undertake such a project. His answer? “Because I can.” And this is the mantra at the heart of Therapy’s culture and approach to their employees. If there’s an idea they want to run with outside of their client and agency work, then run with it they can. Over the years, Therapy’s support of employee-founded brands has resulted in “three big brands”: Miles’ own grill mat business We Are Smoker Sons, a streetwear label Oi Boy that’s now stocked in Selfridge’s and One Sweet Pup, a successful dog brand.

“Therapy is a nourishing environment” Miles says as he talks about the change that the agency has undergone in the last few years. Miles has been at Therapy for seven and a half years and is proud to have become a Creative Director at the age of 30. His break came when, after sending out hundreds of different emails, Neale Hunt, Therapy’s founder, got back in touch. Miles lauds the nature of being in a small agency “because I think you get a richness in your career and life.”

Miles speaks sagely about the importance of respect when it comes to client agency relationships; it’s only then that you’ll get the best work. He says that as the agency “become[s] more daring, I think the client becomes more daring as well and they put their trust in you.” Although quick to critique his own work once made, Miles’ favourite campaigns have ranged from the recent Beauty Bay ad to an award-winning piece for Orajel shot in Romania that involved finger puppets and a fun recycling ad for the NLWA (North London Waste Authority). But for Miles, “I’m probably most proud of where we’re moving to.”

It was watching Mel Gibson pitch a Nike ad in the film What Women Want that sold the advertising industry to Miles. Having loved art at school he says he’ll always be “an art director at heart.” Miles’ artistic side has seen him set up the Cheers to Ideas creative workshop that “just gets us talking about things we don’t normally talk about and allows us to have a bit of fun around it.” The workshops invite people from across the industry and companies to gather, brainstorm and create. As he says, “my passion point is the creative industry."

Alongside building and launching an app, running creative workshops, new parenting with his husband of their young daughter Darcey and running after his French bulldog Royston, Miles is also part of the Pride AM team. The day we speak, he is busy setting up for this year’s Creative Review evening where figures from across the industry get together to discuss a selection of ads in which LGBT individuals have been represented or, in some cases, misrepresented.

Miles is pragmatic when he speaks about his app, detailing how he simply wants to make it as easy as possible for businesses, and business leaders, to behave in an inclusive a way as possible. People, Miles believes, are just worried about getting it wrong. And so, with his work at Therapy, Pride AM and now The Right Pronoun, Miles hopes to simply make “it easier for people to be who they want to be and not create a straight world that we have to bend to.”