Havas India’s Spark 5.0 opens advertising doors for persons with disabilities

MUMBAI: A spark of inclusion. Havas India is widening the doors of advertising and media with the fifth edition of Spark, its flagship internship programme designed to give persons with disabilities equitable access to mainstream industry careers.

The three-month programme, Spark 5.0, offered hands-on experience to interns with invisible disabilities, neurodivergence and medical conditions, placing them on live projects across digital, production, content, copywriting and media teams. Rather than creating a separate track with diluted expectations, the initiative allowed participants to work alongside mainstream agency teams, with workplace adjustments tailored to their individual needs.

The programme combined practical assignments, mentorship and collaboration with accessible onboarding and regular check-ins. Interns were assessed on their capabilities and progress, while retaining the professional standards and learning opportunities offered to previous cohorts.

For Havas India, the initiative seeks to address a persistent industry gap: the underrepresentation of persons with disabilities, despite the talent and perspectives they bring to the workplace.

Havas India CHRO Vandana Tilwani said the programme was designed to create equitable access to opportunities while allowing interns to experience agency life through real assignments and team responsibilities.

“We wanted the interns to experience agency life in its truest form, working on live projects, contributing as part of a team and being evaluated on their capabilities and progress,” she said.

Tilwani added that inclusion did not mean treating everyone identically. Since disability experiences and support requirements vary, the programme focused on individual strengths, aspirations and needs without compromising the quality or rigour of the internship.

The experience, she said, had strengthened the agency’s understanding of what inclusion demands in practice, from thoughtful programme design and responsive managers to the flexibility needed to support different employees. The next step is to apply these lessons to how Havas India attracts, develops and retains talent across the organisation.

Spark 5.0 is rooted in Havas’ People Experience (PX) framework, which guides employees’ day-to-day interactions with the organisation. Built around five commitments, namely Belonging, Wellbeing, Learning, Career and Impact, the framework seeks to connect workplace culture with professional growth.

The latest edition placed particular emphasis on three of these pillars. Belonging allowed interns to contribute as themselves within mainstream teams, with adjustments suited to their individual requirements. Career provided practical exposure to different functions and end-to-end agency processes, backed by mentorship and collaboration. Impact extended the programme’s ambition beyond individual placements to improving accessibility and creating clearer routes into the industry.

The approach recognises that opening the door is only the first step. Accessible processes, supportive managers and meaningful work must also be in place if people are to build sustainable careers.

Havas India, Southeast Asia and North Asia (Japan and South Korea) group CEO Rana Barua said the industry’s ability to represent society authentically depended on bringing a broader range of lived experiences into the teams creating advertising and media content.

“Persons with disabilities remain underrepresented, not because of a lack of talent, but because access to the industry is often limited,” he said.

Barua added that Spark 5.0 reflected the kind of industry Havas India wanted to help build, where talent was recognised on merit and opportunities were not constrained by inaccessible systems or narrow perceptions of who belonged.

He said the programme’s results had given the company confidence to expand the initiative, share its learnings and encourage other industry players to make disability inclusion part of their talent strategies.

The programme has also offered Havas India an opportunity to examine its own working practices, including how teams are supported, how managers respond to individual needs and how accessible processes can become part of everyday operations.

Its wider ambition is to ensure that persons with disabilities are recognised for their skills, ideas and perspectives, rather than defined by the barriers they encounter when seeking employment.

For an industry that shapes how brands and audiences see the world, greater representation behind the scenes matters as much as representation on screen. Spark 5.0 is Havas India’s attempt to turn that principle into practice, one live brief and one career opportunity at a time.