Being the change you want to see in the world requires vision, courage, and the willingness to walk your own path.
ADWEEK’s 2026 Agents of Change, presented by Empower, celebrates the leaders reshaping marketing, media, advertising, and tech through meaningful action.
In partnership with Empower, the industry platform created by Propeller Group and WACL, this award recognizes individuals who combine commercial excellence with a commitment to creating a more responsible and forward-thinking industry.
Rachel Apirian
The Female Quotient began as a small experiential company, and along the way transformed into one of the largest communities of women in business. That shift happened largely through content, which has been led by Rachel Apirian since 2018. In that time, she’s grown The FQ community from 18,000 members to 8 million by carefully choosing the voices to elevate, tackling topics that seem far from business such as caregiving and making them relevant to corporate leaders, and always bringing listeners into the conversation. This uniquely empathetic, human-centric view of work has grown The FQ into a media company that generates 3 billion organic social impressions and creates branded content for over 200 companies annually, with engagement rates up to seven times higher than platform averages.
Talia Arnold
Talia Arnold and her co-founders built Exverus around a radical idea: People shouldn’t have to sacrifice family, health, or ambition to succeed in advertising. Twelve years later, that philosophy has become a competitive advantage for the full-funnel media agency. The leadership team is over 70% women and people of color, while flexible schedules, three months of paid family leave, unlimited PTO, and just one weekly office day for Los Angeles staff help working parents meet all of their obligations—and advance. Twice-yearly retreats bring remote employees together, while bonuses reward ideas that make it into client media plans. Under Arnold’s leadership, Exverus grew into a multimillion-dollar independent agency before joining Brainlabs, where its people-first culture will remain in place.
Ellie Bamford
Keeping a personal touch can be difficult when you’re the chief strategy officer of a 600-strong team overseeing $1.2 billion in business. But VML’s Ellie Bamford is beloved for ensuring visibility and advancement for underserved colleagues, while championing new technology such as the proprietary Foresight Engine to let strategists do what they do best. Her work has raised strategy group billability from 68% to 98% through operational transformation, and has driven nearly $200 million in new business revenue in the past two years. Bamford is also a trusted authority in shaping industry standards, serving on festival juries, hosting workshops, and mentoring junior talent.
Victoria Beaty
Victoria Beaty has spent more than 15 years showing the value of marketing while expanding who gets to be seen and given opportunities. At the urban farming advocacy Growing Places Indy, she used integrated storytelling to help secure more than $1 million in grants and donations, while expanding food-access programs and donating thousands of pounds of produce. She later founded Indianapolis’ first Black-owned plant shop, using it to make greenery—and, in turn, wellness—more accessible through free workshops and forging high-profile partnerships with the WNBA and Indiana Pacers. Her most recent venture, House & Kin Creative, is a principal-led agency where culture and community are essential to outcomes.
Jared Belsky
To Jared Belsky, leadership means a willingness to take risks—comfort, dollars, and even reputation—to make change real. The Acadia CEO instituted direct media buying across accounts and, in February, returned high-six-figure rebates to 53 clients from 2025 media buys. By rejecting principal-based media buying, he gave up nearly $3 million in potential profit, arguing agencies should earn from agreed-upon fees, not by hiding incentives. Belsky has taken the fight industrywide, launching SayNoToPrincipalMediaBuying.com, partnering with the ANA on education for procurement teams, and creating ItsYourRebate.com to help brands ask tougher questions of their agencies. Meanwhile, Acadia has kept on growing, adding 30 clients in 2026 with an 80% pitch-win rate.
Alan Brown
Alan Brown has been building the infrastructure for a more equitable advertising industry, particularly for LGBTQ+ talent. At indie agency DNA&Stone, he co-created Project Violet, connecting emerging queer creatives and strategists with industry mentors, and launched Come Out to Work, helping agencies create cultures where LGBTQ+ employees can be themselves. Internally, 92% of DNA&Stone’s new hires in 2025 identified as women, BIPOC, or LGBTQ+; the agency also holds annual salary audits to address the gender pay gap, along with standardized leveling and equity tracking. Brown also championed Black Black Friday, generating $1.5 million in media support and $250,000 in sales for Black-owned businesses, and led “Poison the Fantasy” during the FIFA World Cup to confront sex trafficking around major sporting events.
Bernice Chao
The path to career advancement is not always clear for underrepresented talent. As founder of Asians in Advertising, Bernice Chao has grown the organization to more than 9,000 members, creating a leadership program with 75 graduates, 690 mentorship pairings, four industry summits and the AIA Awards. She even reaches talent before they graduate into the industry as a professor at Loyola Marymount University for the past five years. She has taught 250 students, some of whom have gone on to win the Effies Cannes Collegiate Competition for four consecutive years. Chao also co-authored The Visibility Mindset, a No. 1 Amazon bestseller giving Asian American professionals tools to advance in the workplace. Her impact has been recognized by the AAF Hall of Achievement, The Advertising Club of New York’s Icon Award, Adcolor’s Catalyst Award, and She Runs It Mother of the Year.
Kim Chappell
Bobbie’s brand was built on a simple insight: Being a new parent comes with too much advice and not enough support. Kim Chappell has turned formula maker Bobbie’s marketing into a platform for destigmatizing how babies are fed through the unconventional move of amplifying the underrepresented voices of actual parents. But feeding babies is not the only hurdle Bobbie is committed to supporting caregivers through—Chappell has also been instrumental in pushing policymakers on paid leave and expanding resources for maternal health. Her “B is for Bobbie” campaign with Cardi B drove major gains in awareness, trust, and consideration while generating 4,000 hotline calls and over 1,000 messages to Congress. By making advocacy part of Bobbie’s business strategy, Chappell has driven brand love in a category that’s otherwise barely discussed in mainstream forums.
Christopher Crawford
To measure success, Christopher Crawford prefers to look at the opportunities an agency creates, not just the creative work it puts out. At Elite Media, he has invested more than $2 million directly into Harlem, including Keep It 100, an entrepreneur pitch competition designed to back emerging creators and future agency owners. His Schoolys initiative at Teachers College Community School provided 50-plus staffers with $150,000 in self-care and professional-development grants, contributing to a 100% increase in staff retention and stronger reported well-being. Crawford also invests in startups addressing financial and health inequities and partners with Harlem nonprofits, and hires people with lived experience rather than through traditional pipelines to make it all happen.
Celeste Durve
The irony of experiential marketing is that it demands extensive experience to get your foot in the door. As the founder of bicoastal hospitality agency Viper, Celeste Durve is changing who gets to build a career in the experiential space, growing the business to seven figures by creating paid, accessible pathways into an industry often gated by degrees and connections. Her 340-person W-2 workforce gets hands-on experience with brands including Google, Amazon, e.l.f. Cosmetics, and HBO, paving the way to frontline roles in management and corporate leadership. Through the Viper Next Gen initiative for college students and her 290,000-reader Smart Is Sexy media platform, Durve extends that mission beyond her company, equipping women and underrepresented talent with skills, mentorship, and access to influential networks.
Miguel Espada
Creating technology that serves people and engages audiences is at the heart of everything Miguel Espada does. At SpecialGuestX, the mathematician-turned-creative pairs cutting-edge AI with human-centered storytelling, turning complex research into work with the power to change how people act. From turning Google’s WeatherNext2 into a user-friendly tool for industries from farming to logistics, to pioneering real-time generative AI in live sports at the 2026 NBA Draft, Espada ensures technical innovation serves its intended audience, helping drive 5x revenue growth. He’s equally committed to changing who gets to shape that future, hiring across disciplines and co-founding AI Forum, which has opened conversations on women, queer communities, and AI in Latin America, widening who gets to shape AI’s future.
Darain Faraz & Sheeraz Gulsher
The joyful disruption of brothers Darain Faraz and Sheeraz Gulsher has improved the lot of creatives all over the U.K. Their joint mission of achieving greater equity for ethnic minorities in the creative industry crystallized in 2019 into People Like Us, the award-winning nonprofit combining creative campaigns, advocacy, and community infrastructure to drive measurable change. The organization has supported more than 3,000 professionals through mentorship, career support, and community events, while pushing the broader U.K. industry to confront salary disparities through a five-year pay gap study. In March 2026, their evidence-based lobbying helped push mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting onto the government agenda, culminating in the U.K.’s formal commitment to the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill. That’s advocacy with staying power.
Jean Freeman & Christy Hiler
Opening their own agency is a dream for many creatives, but the path can be difficult to walk for underrepresented talent. Jean Freeman and Christy Hiler have been paving the way since 2022, when the Zambezi and Cornett leaders co-founded Own It to give women and nonbinary entrepreneurs the data, mentorship, and networks needed to build businesses of their own. Since they came on the scene, women-owned agencies have grown from less than 1% of the industry in 2022 to 4% in 2026, with Own It’s database now spanning more than 1,000 agencies. In 2026, they brought Own It to Cannes Lions and With expanding summits and its first global event at Cannes Lions. Hiler is also one of the founding members and leaders of BLAC, which connects Black and underserved talent with agency internships.
Pancho González
Independent Chilean agency Inbrax does so much more than creative work under the guidance of co-founder and CCO Pancho González. He’s built platforms that give Latin American talent, ideas, and perspectives a bigger stage such as Retail Media Summit Latam, which was founded by González and has grown into a 500-plus-person regional gathering that’s expanding into Peru, Colombia, and Mexico. He’s also pushing independent agencies into AI through IXAI, and broadening DEI representation with Inbrax’s Belong Lab. Inbrax has been recognized as Chile’s Agency of the Year by global creative performance index TopFice for four consecutive years (2022–2025), while González himself has accumulated more than 250 international recognitions for his leadership and creative output.
Nicki Harkrider-Probey
For three decades, Nicki Harkrider-Probey has been changing local media from the inside out. From pioneering local CTV at Premion—bringing streaming ads to local markets years before that was considered a viable category—to now helping Madhive bring data-driven advertising to local businesses, she has consistently moved ahead of the market. But her most lasting impact has been the people she’s mentored: 31 station sales leaders she developed advanced into director or general manager roles between 2016 and 2024, with a deliberate focus on sponsoring and promoting women into leadership. Her approach to managing is equally direct: Listen, understand what people need, and work to make it happen.
Jen Harrington
For the past 15 years, Jen Harrington has led Hatch for the past 15 years as one of 1% of woman-owned independent agencies and has thrived on her own terms. Alongside the creative work, Harrington has worked tirelessly to help other women achieve their goals too. Through her Eat In or Dine Out video series, she’s brought executive concerns out of the boardroom to be aired around a kitchen table, demystifying leadership, while directing a portion of agency proceeds (and staff time) to art education and food insecurity. Hatch’s Cultural Advisory Council, launched in 2023, brought together marketing professionals spanning different ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and career backgrounds to counter the stereotypes being surfaced by AI. In the past three years, she’s also expanded Hatch’s business beyond creative by bringing on industry veteran Dorothy Urlich to build (and own) Hatch Talent, a new revenue engine serving brands’ hiring needs. She also built a Cultural Advisory Council spanning identities and generations to challenge AI-driven stereotyping before it reaches the work.
Emma Harris
Emma Harris turned a life-threatening cardiac arrest into a challenge to an industry addicted to burnout. Through SlowTheF*ckDown, the Glow London founder has reached more than 200,000 people on four continents through keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs, giving teams permission to slow down and gain the space and clarity to reduce wasted effort and instead work together. Harris pairs that advocacy with commercial rigor, helping brands including BT, Bupa, easyJet and Virgin improve focus, alignment, and performance. As global chair of The Marketing Academy Alumni, she also champions women and underrepresented talent, promoting wellbeing as essential to creating good work. So next time you’re deciding whether to take on yet another project, remind yourself of one of Harris’ mantras: Busy is not a strategy.
Sally Henderson
To change the advertising world, Sally Henderson works to make its leaders feel supported. For 15 years, her High-Stakes Leadership Mentoring program has combined coaching, counsel, and practical guidance for executives navigating pressure and pivotal decisions. Her REAL Method (Role, Emotion, Acceleration, Leadership) makes the often-overlooked “how” of leadership tangible, while her pro bono work opens doors for people facing redundancy or transitioning to a new phase of their career. For the past three years, Henderson has mentored Marketing Academy scholars and fellows; she also gives free talks to hundreds annually and supports gender-equity organizations including WACL. In 2026, her research-based book, The HOW of High Performance, became an Amazon No. 1 bestseller in three categories.
Shakirah Hill Taylor
For nearly two decades, Shakirah Hill Taylor has challenged the notion that purpose and performance are competing priorities. At “social good” agency Fenton Communications, she’s personally recruited and developed every member of five digital teams, grown revenue, and turned public interest campaigns into measurable change. Taylor grew the Carton Council account into a $2 million portfolio while expanding digital practice revenue by 20%, and rebuilt an underperforming team into an award-winning operation. Her biggest impact, however, is the people she’s developed, with former mentees now leading digital teams themselves. Through ColorVision, Taylor mentors women of color entering the industry, while her advocacy for health equity and Medicaid doula coverage as a 2024 Black Futures Lab Public Policy Fellow confronted racial disparities in health care.
Paris Hilton
Having spent most of her life in the spotlight, Paris Hilton understands media, marketing, and commerce as well as anyone at an agency. As the head of her own media company, 11:11 Media, she’s used her platform to mobilize her audience in backing issues including child welfare, neurodiversity, and women-owned businesses. Her advocacy helped drive the federal Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act and 16 state laws protecting more than 15 million children. She has also partnered with Understood.org and Google on the digital series Inclusive by Design about creating intentional spaces that support mental health, while her investigative TikTok series “Searching for Mr. Deepfakes” topped 26 million views in its first week. She’s fueled it all through 11:11 Media’s flywheel of content and commerce spanning entertainment ventures, brand partnerships, and consumer products.
Ellen Hyslop
The era of women’s sports has arrived, and its fans are looking to specialized media companies to keep up with the action. Ellen Hyslop co-founded The Gist in 2018 as an editorial platform by women and for women, in an industry where women once represented less than 18% of sports journalists and female and non-binary athletes received less than 5% of coverage. Today, 90% of The Gist’s employees and its entire editorial team are women who focus on storytelling and building fandom instead of getting mired in stats. The platform spans newsletters, social media, a podcast (co-hosted by Hyslop), and events, becoming one of the fastest-growing in sports media with more than 40 million fans engaged each month and revenue growing by 100% year-over-year in 2025.
Ebinehita Iyere
There’s a deep contradiction in the creative industry: Black culture wields enormous influence on music, fashion, and pretty much every other part of pop culture, and yet Black women are often excluded from contributing their expertise at agencies. Ebinehita Iyere’s Milk Honey Bees has built pathways for more than 600 Black young women to enter advertising as creatives, researchers, and aspiring leaders. Her work has brought more than 20 rising female creatives to Cannes Lions over three years, while partnerships with Amplify, TikTok, and Sony Music have helped six secure internships and two progress into full-time roles. By creating international exchanges, industry access, and real career opportunities, Iyere is pushing brands and agencies beyond representation toward meaningful participation.
Nadya Jakupova
A Russian immigrant who started her career over again in the U.K., Nadya Jakupova knows the steep odds that outsiders can face—and sees it as the industry’s job to remove the barriers. Having worked her way up from account manager to global search leader over 20 years, she has used her influence along the way to widen access to opportunity by upskilling over 300 practitioners, elevating overlooked talent, and publishing an extensive AI Search guide to make knowledge accessible. As chair of WPP Media’s AI-Enabled Formats Council and U.K. lead for ChatGPT Ads, she has championed AI ambitions while ensuring that governance and safeguards are not overlooked. Her leadership has driven stronger client performance while making AI expertise—and the opportunities it creates—more inclusive and accessible across the industry.
Barbara Karasek
Since acquiring nationwide agency Paradise in 2018, Barbara Karasek has delivered consecutive years of double-digit growth, 90% annual client and employee retention, and now represents nearly $20 million in billings with a 48-person team. And she does it all with a formal “A Partner for Good” commitment in place that enshrines positive community impact within the agency’s business model. She also sees where business is headed, building her AIOpti platform on the bet that first-party data would be the real competitive advantage, well before the industry would come to the same conclusion. Out of the office, she performs mentorship work with HBCU Scholars and Pathways to Success while providing corporate advocacy for Rethreaded, a Florida-based consumer goods company that employs human trafficking survivors.
Josh Loebner
Josh Loebner is helping advertising see accessibility not as a compliance requirement, but as a creative and business opportunity. Most recently the global head of inclusive design and accessibility at VML, he has championed “accessibility as a gateway to creativity,” most notably through Tennessee Sound Sites, which reimagined alt text with blind travelers and Tennessee songwriters for the state’s tourism council, earning silver and bronze Lions. The first person to earn a PhD focused in advertising, disability, and accessibility, Loebner mentors emerging talent and became Cannes Lions’ inaugural Impact Advisor for Accessibility and Inclusion—just one of the many organizations he works with worldwide to ensure disabled people participate in advertising as creators, strategists, and onscreen talent.
Joe Maglio
When Joe Maglio became McKinney’s fifth CEO in 2018, he took over a stagnant agency. Six years later, revenue is up 3.7x, with 82% of growth coming from new business. He built McKinney Health from zero to eight figures, grew its media practice sixfold, and launched Cheil Agency Network, a five-agency consortium that posted 30% first-year growth and 19 new accounts. The model shows how independent agencies can pool their resources and share infrastructure to achieve scale while preserving their autonomy. Maglio also revived The Creative Circus at Virginia Commonwealth University, restoring a vital pathway for affordable portfolio education, and lobbies Congress as co-vice chair of the 4A’s executive committee.
Rebecca McKinlay
A series of management changes had left Oystercatchers a bit wobbly when Rebecca McKinlay came onboard. She quickly stabilized the business, then led a management buyout that returned the consultancy to private ownership. That independence has fueled a 50% increase in its client pipeline and expanded its offer beyond agency search into marketing ecosystem and commercial reviews. McKinlay is also contributing to new industry guidance, challenging longstanding intermediary practices and pressing ISBA for greater transparency around conflicts and compensation. She has lifted engagement for Oystercatchers’ X-Series by 60%, giving new talent a place to network beyond their organizations, and broadened its awards to recognize leadership and client-agency partnerships.
David Mesfin
David Mesfin had a problem: While working on his documentary, Wade in the Water: A Journey into Black Surfing and Aquatic Culture, he noticed that generative AI had repeatedly misrepresented Black surfers. That discovery inspired Refacing the Future, which launched in 2025 to advocate for accurate representation of communities historically overlooked by AI. The effort has grown to over 22 agency partners, more than 16 BIPOC photographers, and over 100,000 original media assets reaching seven major AI platforms. Mesfin also co-founded INNclusion, an employee-led DEI council that creates programs that strengthen agency culture and talent development. He leads Innocean USA’s continued partnership with Heal the Bay, including “Inell Would,” a campaign honoring environmental justice advocate Inell Woods that launched this year on Juneteenth and documented the creation of a South Los Angeles park in her honor.
JP Napleton
JP Napleton got his foot in the door through the 4A’s Multicultural Advertising Internship Program. Now, he is an account director at Mother New York who lifts others up behind him. He helped launch and formalize employee resource groups, including Queen Mother (celebrating queer culture) and Las Razas (honoring Latine culture), and has led five agency-wide Pride programs. Napleton has also mentored MAIP talent, served on its alumni council and supported Adcolor Futures. His advocacy is also evident in his client work, helping to lead Brooklyn Org’s rebrand into a platform for civic engagement that drove 4x audience growth and $19.5 million distributed to nonprofits in 2024.
Nafissa Norris
Being part of the Conscious Advertising Network, the international nonprofit advocating for ethical creative and media strategies, already means making responsible and inclusive work are on the agenda. What Nafissa Norris has done is increase engagement by the group’s over 200 members by 90% through stronger relationship management, communications and community-building. She launched CAN’s annual industry reports and helped turn its guiding principles into practical tools that members can implement, even offering peer-learning sessions and roundtables. At Bloom, Norris built a network of 45 volunteer leads, herself among them, to expand representation and create new pathways into the industry.
Emily Palmer
The programmatic industry is more equitable, connected, and accountable because of the work of Emily Palmer. She has helped grow The Women in Programmatic Network from one U.K. chapter to 13 across the world, with membership up 55% to 3,075 in the last 18 months. Her strategy and governance have enabled 89 volunteer leaders—many of them getting their first public speaking opportunities through the nonprofit—to build mentorship, speaking, and career opportunities for women in markets where they’ve been traditionally underrepresented. She is also tackling systemic industry issues: As the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement’s Programmatic Working Group chair, she brings together publishers, agencies, platforms, and measurement companies to improve programmatic TV transparency.
Jen Passaniti
In the middle of the pandemic, Jen Passaniti helped launch 1986 Studios as a fully remote, freelance-based production house for Highdive. Today, that division spans editorial, live-action, and VFX/AI under one roof, united by her cardinal rule of “uphold the craft.” When generative AI arrived, she trained every producer, creative, and post-production team, and developed governance standards for data sourcing, model training, and approvals. She led development of Digit, a tool that trains custom models only on a brand’s approved footage and cuts production timelines by up to 50%. Under Passaniti’s care, Highdive grew 14% year-over-year, and even with all of the AI advancements she never lost sight of the people using it, helping broker a SAG-Aftra AI partnership protecting voice talent.
Patricia Pieretti
To tell the heritage story of a 90-year-old water services brand across more than 100 countries, you can’t just go with the flow. Patricia Pieretti stepped into the role of global CMO at Culligan three years ago and quickly established the brand’s first Center of Excellence to drive a unified marketing message and commercial accountability. She sharpened the value proposition, modernized Culligan’s identity, and drove consolidation of its portfolio from 87 brands to 18 to strengthen the connection between brand and service. By 2025 that strategy saw Culligan spending 30% of its North American media investment to support upper-funnel activity, compared to 8.3% in 2023. U.S. marketing also saw a 4.5% lift in brand awareness and a 9.4% lift in purchase intent. And by 2026, Culligan’s total awareness had increased from 66% to 71%. H2Oh yeah.
Zach Rosen
Throughout his career, Zach Rosen has built businesses, partnerships, and communities with three goals in mind: connecting people, spotting opportunities, and creating value on both sides. Over the course of 15 years and several companies, Rosen has consistently backed the side of the market with less leverage: At Index it was header bidding; at LiveRamp it was accessibility; at Multilocal it was curation and bid intelligence. He founded his own adtech advisory and investment firm, Supernova, in 2024 to back projects where others weren’t looking. And in 2025, he defied the political pressure silencing LGBTQ+ advocacy with Supernova Pride at Cannes Lions, the festival’s first-ever LGBTQ+ summit. He’s carried that spirit over Multilocal Media, where he’s driving growth by centering consumer needs to guide development projects.
Ben Skinazi
Ben Skinazi is the commercial and brand architect behind Equativ’s transformation into a leading independent alternative to walled gardens, guiding the ad platform’s growth to tripling its size in three years. And with a great platform comes great responsibility: With the Green Media Summit, now in its third edition and expanded to the U.K., he has convened over 350 brands, partners, and industry leaders to advance climate-conscious advertising. He helped scale GreenPMPs, now adopted by over 14,000 brands, cutting campaign emissions by 25% while improving viewability by 10% and CTR by 175%. On the AI side, Skinazi has advocated for responsible adoption of the technology that serves the interests of users, publishers, and the broader programmatic ecosystem, making sustainability as vital as profitability.
Amy White
Talent is everywhere but opportunity isn’t, and Amy White has spent her career fixing that dichotomy. As AI skills became more crucial in the workforce, she led the evolution of Adobe’s Digital Academy to meet the moment, adding generative AI and digital marketing courses through Coursera and committing more than $100 million through donations, scholarships, and product access. The expanded educational ecosystem now reaches 1.7 million learners across 163 countries, opening doors on a global scale. White has also grown the Film & TV Fund, which has supported over 1,000 creators since 2024, with four filmmakers premiering projects at Sundance 2026. She also led Adobe’s partnership with the Effie Lions Foundation to back an eight-month fellowship for rising creators.
Dinah Williams
Dinah Williams built the U.K.’s first industry-wide sponsorship program for Black marketing talent, specifically to help professionals left behind by the industry after a layoff. As project director of Black Representation in Marketing (BRiM), she has connected more than 200 senior sponsors and sponsees across WPP Media, Publicis, Omnicom Media Group, and independents since October 2024. Participants have won promotions and spots on the Future 100 and 30 Under 30 lists, retaining top talent who otherwise may have left the agency world. She also founded the social enterprise practice Avenir Pathways CIC, and through it built Future Reset, a three-day career transition program for professionals who had been made redundancy. Participants reported that their career confidence rose 84% in three days, with 100% rating it 9 or 10, and one describing the job search help as “game-changing.”
Kim Williams
Over a 26-year advertising career, Kim Williams has matched business performance with progress in representation and access. As CMO of Usher’s New Look, she helped secure more than $8 million in brand partnerships and sponsorships, while driving a 45% rise in media coverage, 40% growth in event attendance, and 30% improvement in event profitability. Now at Walton Isaacson, Williams helped architect The Home Depot’s first African American general market, year-round campaign, demonstrating how multicultural marketing and community engagement can strengthen business relationships too. She also mentored emerging diverse talent through the BLAC Internship Program for four years through 2025, and stays engaged in issues near and dear to her heart such as civil rights, civic engagement, and wellness.
Kate Wolff
Kate Wolff is building the infrastructure for a more inclusive advertising industry. As founder of NGLCC-certified Lupine Creative and No Sheep Studios, she has championed LGBTQ+ storytelling for brands including HBO, Spotify, Teva, and Lionsgate, earning recognition from the Clios, Shorty, and over 20 more accolades. She also co-founded Do the WeRQ, creating mentorships, education, and community for LGBTQ+ ad professionals, and now leads SenseUs, the first census of LGBTQ+ talent in U.S. advertising. A longtime educator and industry judge, Wolff is ensuring queer talent is represented behind the scenes, where they can make the biggest difference.
Fiona Wylie
Refusing to choose between her career progression and family life, Fiona Wylie founded her agency Brand Champions as a remote-first workplace with careers designed around parents, caregivers, and professionals returning after a career break. Internally, this commitment shows up as training budgets for every employee, regular recognition, and a fully funded annual offsite. The external results: Brand Champions hit its £3 million ($4 million) stretch revenue target for 2026 four months ahead of year-end, with client retention at 87%, and the team growing from 16 to over 40 people this year alone. The agency makes it all work with its Service on Standby (SoS) model—swapping conventional retainers for flexible strategic and creative support—which has been adopted by clients including Costa Coffee and PizzaExpress.
Michelle Yeadon
Accessibility is not a burden—it’s a creative tool, and Michelle Yeadon took that thesis all the way to Cannes Lions 2026 with P&G’s Taide Guajardo. At Responsible Marketing Advisory, she has been the driving force behind the ISBA Ad Accessibility Network since its operationalization—when only 17% of global advertising had any accessibility features—and attracted the likes of Google, Meta, Unilever, and Diageo to the steering group. She co-created freely available best practice guides and production checklists to help advertisers the world over. And while the program was only launched in 2025, ISBA member brand ads with subtitles have risen from 51% to 70%.
