Ad Age is marking Black History Month 2023 with our third-annual Honoring Creative Excellence package. (Read the introduction here.) Today, our guest editor Kwame Taylor-Hayford turns the spotlight to Oriel Davis-Lyons, the chief creative officer at Mother New York and founder of ONE School.

“From creating ONE School in partnership with The One Club to recently taking on the CCO role at Mother New York, Oriel is making his mark on the industry,” says Taylor-Hayford. “He is using his platform to change the system, creating space for others and ensuring that the door remains open long-term.”

Here, Davis-Lyons shares his thoughts on the power of a support network for Black creatives.

In the summer of 2020, I wrote a post on LinkedIn, offering to help aspiring Black creatives who wanted to put a portfolio together but didn’t have the two years or the $40,000 it would take to do it via a traditional ad school. 

I didn’t plan to create a school and I certainly wasn’t a teacher. I just knew that there was and is a vast amount of Black creative talent that we, as an industry, are happy to tap for the music, the culture and the fame, but when it comes to putting Black talent into our own creative departments, we could never seem to “find” them.

This is the third year that ONE School will offer aspiring Black creatives the chance to build a world-class portfolio, learn from advertising’s top talent and get a foot in the door at the industry’s best creative departments. But, almost three years after that Linkedin post, with over 130 graduates and our first international school launching in the U.K. this spring, the most valuable part of the experience is the community of alumni, mentors, tutors, speakers and sponsors who are all connected by the school.

It’s a network that not only opens doors to new opportunities but encourages members to look out for each other through the inevitable lows that come with any creative career. It’s the kind of network that has been built into the industry for white people for so long they don’t even realize it’s there. But for Black creatives, to have this kind of support network can be the difference between staying and thriving in this industry or leaving altogether.

As someone who left school at 16 with no qualifications, I was lucky to be able to put a portfolio together without spending a fortune. If I hadn’t had that opportunity, I’d probably still be working in a kitchen somewhere. So, to know that there are creatives who are now two years into their careers, producing great work and making a living because we were able to open a door that didn’t exist a couple of years ago, that’s something I’ll be proud of and grateful for for the rest of my career.