In 2021, Asmirh Davis, chief strategy officer and founding partner of Majority, helped launch the Shaquille O’Neal-backed agency after 20 years in the industry.

The agency got off to a fast start with its “Vax That Thang Up” campaign for BLK, a dating app for black singles, which was a remix of the hip-hop song “Back That Thang Up.” The agency also landed clients including OshKosh, the NBA, Amazon, Merrell and Shake Shack.

While diversity is a focus, Davis says only 10% of the agency’s work is catered solely to “Black or brown audiences.”

“We start off all of our presentations by saying we are not a multicultural agency, we're an agency for the culture,” Davis said. “We're building an agency that so happens to be built on a vision that has a greater mission behind it. We are not an agency that's only doing work that powers that mission forward—through our sheer existence, we are the manifestation of that mission.”

What advice would you give your younger self?

Define who you want to be and not who others think or say you should be. Once you commit to being that, authentically all the time, the things in life that are meant for you will find you.

What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?

In 2011 I quit my job as media director at one of the fastest-growing agencies at the time, Moxie, leading the media team for one of the largest advertisers in the world, Verizon Wireless. With no job or intention of getting a job anytime soon, I took an adult summer vacation and reset my career. Four months later I started my own independent consultancy where I spent the next five years experiencing the most financial, professional and emotional fulfillment I have had in my 20-year career.

If you weren’t doing your current job, what would you be doing and why?

I would be working in a nonprofit or as a civil servant to build up Black communities and champion policies that will better Black lives.

What should the industry do to encourage more women and people of color into its ranks?

Don't bring them into hostile environments where they are not respected, celebrated or valued; and hold those who create and cultivate hostile environments accountable. Also, stop requiring that they outperform, overextend and assimilate to the cultural norms of an industry that was built to keep them out of it.

What is the biggest lesson you have taken away from the pandemic?

Empathy is our most valuable intellectual currency. The ability to see and understand other people's perspective and use it to inform how we behave, especially when it has no direct impact on us, has the power to change the world, for better or worse.