How did you discover your passion for advertising? Although I studied advertising in college, I hadn’t caught the advertising bug yet. I wasn’t sure if I was good enough, and didn’t know if I wanted to come up with ideas day after day, but most importantly, I didn’t want to face the constant rejection that comes with the job. However, when I began working at an agency in Richmond, United Kingdom, I also started working on my portfolio through the night with ad creatives Tom Carty and Walter Campbell. These guys instilled confidence in me and eventually became my mentors. That was when I started to feel the drive to do the “next big thing.”

What led you to establish your hybrid creative agency and production company, Quiet Storm? My ambition wasn’t to run my own agency, but I became frustrated at the divisions between agency departments: creative, accounts, strategy and production always seemed to be against each other. I’d have to wade through office politics before I could figure out what the client was actually trying to achieve. I also found it hard when our team came up with an idea, lived and breathed it through every stage of the process to production, and then it would be given to a director who didn’t care about the idea as we did or understand it.

At Quiet Storm, we believe in having creatives direct their own work and producing everything in house. This enables us to further elevate the work in its execution, rather than diminish it. We’re creative guardians of the idea from start to finish, and we know it better than anyone else. We also believe in collaboration with our clients; having them feel close to the process from start to finish benefits the creative overall, as well as it being more time and cost effective for them.

What do you wish you had known when you first founded Quiet Storm? I was pretty naïve and went in with a very gung-ho attitude. For example, I didn’t try to poach any clients from my old jobs; I just imagined they would come off the back of our award-winning work’s success. This, of course, isn’t the case. You need some savvy people around you to make sure the work is coming in. As a creative person, I’ve always made sure I’ve had solid business-minded people around me. It’s been a key part of Quiet Storm’s 25-year success.

Why did you decide to recently relaunch your Create Not Hate mentorship and training initiative? The tragic murder of George Floyd left me feeling powerless, considering I was trapped at home in the midst of a pandemic. Having seen what a powerful force advertising can be in influencing people, I’ve always been campaigning for diversity to be improved in the industry: as the amount of people from diverse backgrounds in the industry is incredibly low, which has a negative impact on our work. After all, how do you connect properly with your target audience if there is no one like them in your business? And who is the most qualified to talk about social issues than the people living them? New diverse talent coming into the industry is not only beneficial, but it is also the key to the industry staying relevant.

This year, I knew we had to do more than talk if we wanted anything to change. That’s why I decided to reignite the project and launch Create Not Hate as a nonprofit. Create Not Hate aims to help marginalized young people from similar backgrounds to my own unlock their creative potential, while also addressing the social issues they live with every day. We want to make underrepresented young people aware of the opportunities in the creative industries and create a pathway into careers through hands-on exposure and experience with all aspects of the creative process. We already ran a program with young people and presented two sets of creative work into the world to address racism, gaining an incredible amount of traction and media reach.

Do you have any new goals for the initiative? The one thing we need to accomplish this time around is making Create Not Hate sustainable. The key to everything is securing funding. Many agencies and partners have already gotten involved to help with the first program, such as Exposure, The Mill, The Ridley Scott Creative Group and Red Brick Road, who we are incredibly grateful to. However, we still need as much support as we can get from the industry to make sure we can keep going with the program.

You recently recreated an ad for a TikTok for Business challenge called Don’t make ads, make TikToks. What were the difficulties of adapting that spot for a new media platform? Trying to re-create something in lockdown is always a challenge. However, we cobbled this together as best we could with my eleven-year-old daughter directing, my eldest son as my co-star and some questionable police uniforms. Another challenge was getting something that was originally filmed in multiple shots to work in one shot. If the pandemic has taught me anything, it’s that we need to be adaptable, something we’ve managed pretty well as an agency these past few months. Even though I can’t stand being on the other side of the camera, the whole experience was pretty fun. Also, my daughter was a natural director.

How has the rise of technology helped or hurt the brands that you work for? Technology is usually a positive thing, and even if it isn’t, at the end of the day we have to adapt. However, I do think that creativity dies when we rely too heavily on data. That’s why we see work in the world that isn’t very interesting: the tech being used to map out people’s personalities results in largely data-driven work. Technology and new platforms are great, exciting things, but in order to connect and engage with people, the creativity has to come through and show its human side. The two things have to go hand in hand; otherwise, people simply switch off.

What changes have you observed in the advertising field since you first started? No bigger change has ever come about than the year of 2020. There are benefits to this new way of working, and communicating with clients has never been easier—there’s no need to jump on a plane or train to talk to them anymore. However, for us as a creative business, we need to get back to an energy-fueled environment to share that human connection at least a couple of days a week. It’s definitely something I’ll be wanting back once it’s safe.

Do you have any advice for creatives just entering the advertising profession? Learn from those around you, but at the same time, keep your sense of self strong. Your personality is fundamental in giving you the edge and that spark of difference. I knew there was no one from my background or who thought exactly like me when I entered the industry; I’ve always used that to my advantage.