Networks, Rituals, Artifacts, and Language: Culture as a Living System with Jonathan Akwue

In this conversation, Chisom speaks with Jonathan Akwue about legacy, leadership, creative capital, and the business of culture. From his serendipitous family origin story to leading one of the most culturally influential agencies in the world, Jonathan shares the personal and professional threads that shaped his journey.

He opens with a serendipitous account of how his Swiss mother met his Nigerian father in London in 1963 — a story of kindness, intuition, and destiny — and reflects on how growing up in South London shaped his early fascination with advertising. A childhood encounter with a mysterious bus shelter ad sparked his obsession with the psychology of persuasion and storytelling.

Jonathan breaks down the difference between advertising that interrupts and advertising that connects, explaining how Translation works at the intersection of culture, creativity, and commerce. He outlines a powerful framework for understanding culture: through networks, rituals, artifacts, and language — and how brands can either earn trust or be rejected if they don’t engage with authenticity.

The conversation spans:

• The evolution of Translation and UnitedMasters, and how both empower creators and brands through culture.
• Why culture is fluid, and the future of influence lies in Lagos, Santiago, and Cape Town, not just New York or LA.
• The myth of leadership apathy in Gen Z, and why youth-led creator economies redefine power and aspiration.
• How AI and generative tools are changing the rules — and why those who don’t adapt will be left behind.
• The ethical complexity of branding, cancel culture, and what it really means to lead with values in a volatile world.

Jonathan shares his leadership philosophy — anchored in responsibility, humility, and mentoring the next generation — and why he wants Translation to become the definitive global market leader in culture.

The episode ends on a deeply personal note, with Jonathan reflecting on legacy & family.

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jonathanakwue

Translation LLC: https://ins

Transcript

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Welcome to Overnight Wisdom, a show where we sit with changemakers, artists, business leaders, and thinkers. Each conversation is an invitation to slow down, to go deeper, and unearth the quiet insights that shape who we are. If you're seeking honest reflections, unexpected wisdom, and a deeper understanding of what it takes to not merely survive, but to thrive. You're in the right place. What does it mean to lead with culture, to build brands that don't just speak at people, but from them? My guest today is Jonathan Akwue, President at Translation LLC and part of the executive leadership team at United Masters, two of the most influential companies shaping culture, music, and creativity today. In this conversation, we talk about legacy, leadership, and the business of culture. Jonathan shares the quiet beginnings that shaped him from a cross continental love story that brought his parents together to a childhood moment at a bus stop that sparked a lifelong obsession. with storytelling and persuasion. We unpack what culture really is, not a trend, but a system of rituals, networks, language, and artifacts. We explore the myth of Gen Z apathy, the future of influence in the global South, and why creators are now the new power class. John brings a deeply reflective systemic lens to the conversation informed by years working across creative industries and global agencies. This is a master class in culture, responsibility and vision. A reminder that real leadership is deliberate. It doesn't posture, it builds. Let's dive in. hi, John. Welcome. How are you doing? I'm very well, thank you. Thanks for being here with me today. I'm really excited for this conversation. And I'm going to jump right in. Tell me a bit about yourself. How did you become you? Well, that's a very deep and profound question. guess it would start off, from where my parents met. There's an interesting story about how my parents met. So I'm of dual heritage, my father being Nigerian and my mother being Swiss and they met in the UK in London in some rather unlikely circumstances, I would say. So this is in the early 60s. My father was sent to study to become a lawyer with the idea, as many Nigerians did, to get the skills, then come back and bring those skills back to his community. So he was sent with a few of his friends to study law. And then my mother went to the UK, went to London to learn English. And um she is a very religious person. And I always joke with people that there is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, then my mom, and then John the Baptist. So in terms of the order, so she was on her way to church and she was going to church in South London and she saw a Nigerian lady. She didn't know she was Nigerian. She just saw a lady who happened to be a Nigerian lady who was struggling with some bags, heavy bags. And my mother being the kind of person that she is, she gets off the tube. You know, this is the underground as it's known in the UK. and she asked this lady, hey, can I help you with your bags? And so she's like, oh, thank you so much. And so my mother walks with her all the way to her apartment. And, even though was away from the church that she was going to visit, she walked all the way to her apartment and she dropped off this lady's bags. And then this lady said to her, oh my God, I have to thank you. You have to come to my house for dinner. And my mother's like, no, there's no need. Honestly, it's fine. And she's like, no, please take my number. Please take my number. she takes her number unbeknownst to my mother. That lady was a friend of my dad's. As my father, she says, I've just met your wife. And she said, I met this lady. She had the face of an angel. She helped me with my bags. You have to meet this person. So of course my mother knows nothing about any of this. and she gets a call. She gets invited by this lady to dinner. So she goes around to this house in Kennington in South London, and she shows up with some flowers because she didn't know any Nigerian, any black people, anything at all. You know, she's just a little Swiss young woman living in London as studying, or as an au pair studying English. And she rocks up at this house. The lady is not there. My father is there who has prepared a meal for her. And she still walked into this apartment. Like, you know, like, you know, there's a black guy there that she does not know. There is no lady there. And she basically been set up and she always says that she knows exactly the day that she met my father because they had this meal. They turned on the TV and JFK had been assassinated. So I know the day that my parents met, which is November the 22nd, 1963, because that was the day that JFK was assassinated. So when you ask the question about how did I get here, that's kind of how I got here. and I'm the youngest of four children that came out of that marriage. So um yeah, I put it down to the good hearted nature of my mother and some serendipity and the creator having a master plan. I love that. I often find this to be an interesting question to ask people because the most interesting things come out. Because I'm not being specific. I'm just like, I'm going to toss the ball, kick it wherever you want to kick it. I really like that. um You've had that. You were brought into this world because your mom. Mm-hmm. like I would not enter into a house with someone I do not know. So that was meant to be. Yeah, yeah, correct, correct. But and so I grew up in London, um grew up in, uh spent most of my time in South London, knew from an early age that I was going to be in the creative industries. So that was something I always had a passion for. I was grateful for the fact that I had an older brother, because all of all the weight of my of my father's expectations were on him. He was the one that was supposed to go and study law. He was the one who's going to do all those things. And I was the younger one. So I could do what I wanted. I had the freedom. And so I knew that I was going to be in the creative industries from a very young age. I was very passionate about comics and drawing and art. I knew creativity was going to be part of my path. I didn't know exactly what that path was going to be. but I also had a fascination with advertising. And again, just as a illustrative story, the first time I got really interested in the business of advertising happened when I was, I guess I would have been maybe 13 or 14 years of age. And by this time we had moved to further away in South London, but my school, was about an hour's bus ride up. It was in a place called the Oval, And just on that route, when you get to kind of Brixton, I don't know if you know London that well, but when you get to kind of Brixton, there was a bus shelter, like a bus stand. And I remember seeing this poster and it was a picture of a young girl. And it just said, hi, my name's Amy written in children's handwriting and I like slugs and snails. That was it. No message, no brand, nothing at all. And I remember seeing this poster for a while going past as I'm on the bus and just going, huh. And then just going to school, thinking nothing of it. It was a long time afterwards, maybe three, six months later, this poster reappeared on that bus shelter and it said, hi, I'm Amy. Remember me? And then underneath it just said, ad shell ads work. And ad shell was the company that was selling the advertising space for those posters. They're now part of clear channel. And I, I was blown away. I was like, my God, somebody thought about that. somebody knew I was going to see that picture and remember it So, so when I actually eventually got into advertising industry, and I started writing for all one of the trade publications called campaign, which is campaign in the UK, which is a big trade publication. And I wrote, I wrote a story called in praise of Amy, because I went and found that picture. I actually called up clear channel and said, Hey, do you have a picture of this? little girl, she was on bus shelter and I found the picture and I did this post about it. And ironically enough, um Amy saw that post and turned out because it got posted online and I saw in the comments and then she, she answers and she said, Hey, I'm Amy. And obviously that wasn't her real name, but she said, you know, that, and, so she goes, I was looking to see if anyone had found this poster. um But she goes, that was my dad. It turns out he was a marketing director at Shell. came up with the idea, put his daughter in it. so, yeah, so I credit Amy as the reason that I got into advertising, because that was the light bulb moment for me, which I was like, that is so smart. I really want to understand how that happens and who makes that happen. And when I traced back, like, where did my sort of love affair with advertising begin? It was probably that it was, it was, it was Amy. What in particular clicked for you? It was the, I guess it's the power of persuasion. And one of the things I love about the industry and you know, don't get me wrong. Most people hate advertising and spend their life trying to avoid advertising and everybody in advertising understands that. and you know, I hate bad advertising. Right. Because I think most people hate bad advertising and bad advertising is something that is not relevant to you. It's interruptive. It takes you away from the thing that you were actually enjoying. If you think about the, know, whether it's a YouTube spot or whether it's a something on TV, it's interruptive. Whereas when you see something that you actually were interested in, or you actually care about, or you think is very clever or funny, or it adds something to you. People don't hate that. that's seen as content. that's seen as there's value to that. So for me, I was fascinated by the challenge of this is the only medium where, you know, it actively follows people. Like, you know, most things people you, you opt in, you decide to watch that show or you watch this or you scroll on that. Whereas in the industry that I'm in, we have a challenge because people are actively trying to avoid us. and the therefore the mental and creative challenges you have to overcome in order to make content that people actually want to consume, let alone do something about, let alone take an action, maybe even go buy or purchase the thing that you want to do. That intellectual and creative challenge for me is, is fascinating. and you meet the smartest, strangest, most creative people. their life's work is trying to unlock that particular conundrum. And so learning how to manage those people, lead those people, you know, how to work with those people, how to get the best out of people like that, the kind of fascinating conversations you have, that's the joy that I've been able to do for many years now. I love that. Thanks for sharing. I'm thinking about, before you answered this question, I thinking also it has something to do with memory, right? Because when you see something like that, a lot of us expect, hi, I'm this, and then something comes after it. So there's also a thinking to, okay, you're Amy, sure. But it's trusting that somebody is going to see that and somebody would have had that reaction and then. Trust in the process, that there are people who use that same bus lines or whatever it is, and they'd see that. So it will always find the people that it's for. So that's kind of brilliant. Yeah. And I'm pretty sure they didn't think that that was going to inspire some kid, you know, on their way to school to think. And it wasn't like a linear curve, but it's just one of those points, you know, when you can look at it you can kind of go, that was interesting. And then there's other little dots along the journey for me where I just got more interested. But what I would say is I didn't actually get into the field of advertising for quite some time because I didn't know anybody in it. Hmm. And particularly in the UK at the time, it's still true, this idea of social capital, this idea of who you know, and getting in because of networks that you're connected to, I didn't have any of that. I was literally just a kid growing up in South London. I didn't know anybody that was in this industry. And I was very much on the outside of that. And it took a few years for me to find a way in. But that's another story we may. may or may not get into. Yeah, I actually want to hear that because I wanted to ask you about you've had an expensive career. Yeah, from media to advertising, I guess it's all kind of different aspects or different rooms. And you spend quite a bit of time with publicist group and different articles that they have. And now you are at translation. So can you just map out how does that happen? I'll start with translation so translation was founded by a guy called Steve Stout. And Steve is something of a legend in the kind of hip hop industry and worked very closely with some of the biggest. stars in the world. So he famously discovered Nas as an example. He went out to Queens, Queensbridge, I believe it was, and went and found this 17 year old kid who was known to be a rapper and signed him. You know, he worked very closely with Jay Z. He worked with, you know, Mary J. Blythe, was Mary J. Blythe's manager. He worked with Will Smith, et cetera, et cetera. so he was a music industry executive who was coming up at the time, this is in the mid to late 80s and early 90s, where hip hop was just taking over the world. And he was one of those people behind that making that happen. And I think the aha moment for him was when he was working with Will Smith on the Men in Black soundtrack. So you remember the film Men in Black, Will Smith was there and uh Steve was working with that the record label and they were making this album, And they sold like, you know, 10 million units or whatever it was, like an inordinate amount of CD sales at the time. But what Steve noticed is that the Ray-Ban glasses that uh Will Smith was wearing sold like 10X, whatever the CDs were on. You know, it was like a multiple, massive multiple in terms of the sales of the Ray-Ban. And suddenly Ray-Ban, which was glasses that no one was really wearing before that movie, just became fashionable again because of the power of culture and the power of one particular cultural asset, which was this huge blockbuster film and Will Smith and everything he represented at the time. And I think that was the aha moment for Steve when he went, wait, there's more to just selling records. culture can sell products. And so that was the moment where he kind of birthed translation and created translation. Now he wrote a book back in 2012 called The Tanning of America. he sort of tells that story and talks about how we have to think about culture differently to the ways in which traditionally culture had been thought of by advertising. So the way that advertising, particularly in America works, but it's some variation of this everywhere in the world, is that they build customer segments, know, profiles based on segmentation. And those will look at your ethnicity and your gender and your age and your income and where you live, you know, all of those sorts. And then they put you into a bucket based on those things. And particularly in the U.S., you have what they know, it was known as the general market and then the multicultural market. So you would have general market agencies who would target, you know, middle America, typically white America. And then you would have specialist agencies for the Latino community or for the African American community. And Steve was like, that model doesn't make sense. That model doesn't work. And so he posited that culture. Cultures are the things that we are often, it's not just the cultures we're born into, it's the cultures that we adopt And he was using the reference point of hip hop and talking about how a kid from Connecticut can have as much in common with a kid from Compton because of the culture that they have. opted into and that shared culture being hip hop culture. And so that was his insight. And he wrote that out. He talks about Run DMC and how Run DMC did that first deal with Adidas. And oh when these German executives flew to Madison Square Gardens and saw all these kids rocking out to my Adidas, uh as Americans would say, and then suddenly they signed this group and then Adidas went from nowhere to like from literally from zero to hero because of the power of that culture. So he encapsulates that he writes this book again, 2012 I'm in London, I read that book. I was already in the industry by this point and I was banging up against this, this kind of ceiling myself I guess the way in which the world or the industry, I saw it at the time, had some blinkers on and I read this book and I was like, Oh my goodness me, this guy absolutely gets it. Like, Hmm. And that's what put Steve on the radar for me. And that's what put translation on the radar. So, you know, again, I looked up, I was Googling, this is translation in London? he didn't have footprint in London. We still don't have an official footprint in London, but uh that was the moment where it clocked for me who this guy was and what it was. Scroll forward. I ended up working at publicists. I got offered an incredible job. was headhunted to do this incredible job over at Publicis. I ended up working with Samsung and I'd worked with Samsung previously at my previous agency. And then I got this opportunity to work and run the European operation for Samsung, which I then did. And then a few years later, this is part of Publicis group, a few years later that took me out to Singapore because they asked me to run the... Asian Pacific operation. It's a huge piece of business for for the publicist groups, one of their top clients. So I moved to Singapore with my family and then I was given a global role and this was a global media lead role, which then took me to New York. And so again, working with Samsung and in 20 or 2024. last year I get an invitation to go to the Masters golfing tournament. And I'm not into golf particularly, but the masters is the creme de la creme. It's the one that everybody says that you've got to get to. And members of my team will like, John, you absolutely have to go. And when you go, you've got to go and buy the merch because it's like exclusive and it's only during the masters that you can get the merch. Anyway, So I go and I'm at the masters and I'm in this store. And I turn around and I see this guy and there's not that many black people at the masters. And we're in the store and I was like, wait a minute, that's Steve Starr. So I introduced myself because I thought I may as well just go and say hello. So I introduced myself and he was like, have we met? And I was like, we haven't met, but you had an influence on my career. And he was like, well, how? And I said, well, For one thing, like I read your book and you know, that was one of the things that was pivotal in my journey. So we get into a conversation and he asked me how I find living in New York, et cetera, et cetera. And I tell him, which is true, how much I love living in New York because when I was a kid, I loved hip hop, I loved superhero comics, Marvel superhero comics in particular, and both of those were coming out of New York. So the fact that I can live in the city that when I was a kid in London, everything culturally that I was consuming was coming from New York. And so we just had this conversation and he also was fascinated by the fact that I'd worked with Samsung for 10 years and he was like, you must be a crazy fill in the blank to be able to work with a client like that for that period of time. So we just had a uh 10 minute conversation in this store. He gets my number. He says, we've got to do lunch. And I was like, okay, sure. And then, A few weeks later, he sends me a text and we're trying to find a time to do lunch and either he can't do it or I can't do it And then he says, he sends me a text one day and says, John, can I call you in five minutes? I said, okay. So he calls me up and he said, look, I'm going to cut straight to the chase. He said, I've been looking for a president for my agency for over a year now. And I've got a headhunter in my office and she's trying to get me to sign off on someone else. I don't think they're the person. I think you're the guy. And I went, uh, okay. Wow. Number one. And then, but my, honestly, my second reaction was like, thank you. But actually I'm in a really good spot right now. actually, I, you know, publicist is doing incredibly well. They've been incredibly good to me. They took me from London and my family to be from London to Singapore, from Singapore to New York. They'd looked after us. I've been there for nine years. I was doing absolutely great. Um, So we, but we started having a conversation. He was like, John, John, wait, wait, wait, don't close your mind to it. Just come and meet my people. Come and look at the opportunity. And it was that process of looking at the company as it had become and understanding how it had evolved into include now United masters and United masters as a separate part of the business, uh, which is a independent record label. and distribution platform. So think of a record label in your pocket. um And because Steve had again seen that there's an injustice in the way that the record industry was uh set up, where you as an artist have to give your intellectual property to this company and you sell your publishing rights, you sell your rights, and they own you essentially. So I don't know if you remember when Prince changed his name to that symbol. And he talked about, because he was like, he was so upset about it that he talked about being a slave to the system. That's because he'd sold his rights to these major labels. And Steve was like, no, the future of music is going to be independent. So he launched United Masters so that artists can retain their IP. But he also, it's essentially a distribution platform. So you can sign up and then we will distribute your music to all the streaming platforms. And there's a record label that sits behind it and all the things. And when he started to speak to me about United Masters and the fact that at the time there was about 2 million artists had signed up on the platform. Now it's closer to 3 million. And these are people that are reaching an audience of over 3 billion people. And we've had over 50 billion streams And so because I'd spent the last few years now working in media and understanding the power of data and the power of these audiences and realizing that this isn't 3 million consumers. These are three million artists, creators, entrepreneurs, the sorts of people that are taste makers, the people that are changing culture. That's a massive pool of culture, which is very valuable from a brand's perspective. And that was the thing that made me think, actually, there could be an opportunity here, a bigger opportunity for me to do something even outside of what I'd achieved at the publicist group. So that's what made me... Take the leap of faith. Right, right. Okay. I mean, that's really one very cool thing, story that just happened, right? And right, that thing about being in the right place at the right time. And it was meant to be again, the universe arranged it. I'm curious, what is the difference then with translations? What does translations do? Yeah. So I guess, so we talk about ourselves as being a culture agency, as opposed to an advertising agency. And that is at the time when translation started 20 years ago, that was kind of revolutionary. Today it's not today. You walk 50 yards and you're, you know, particularly in New York, everyone's a culture agency. Everyone claims to be a culture agency. What does it actually mean? Is it means that, as a consumer, you'll know this, I'm sure you go onto a website. you click on something or you view something and all of a sudden those ads are going to keep chasing you forever. oh And, and most people don't like that, but it's just a fact of life. And that's because, ah platforms and agencies and meta and Google, they've figured out that they've got a profile of you as a consumer and they track your behavior. And then they then keep chasing and if you've showed any interest in that product, they're going to keep following you along and say, maybe, you you sure, you sure, you sure, you sure. Just kind of keep reminding you. And there's some real science behind that and why they do it. And the fact that, you know, you have to see something 14 times before you remember it and repetition and all these sorts of things. So there is a logic to it, even as, even if it may be annoying. And most of the industry is chasing consumers, right? Most of the industry is chasing a better understanding of you. What makes you tick? What are the things you like? What are you not like? What are the, you know, that's what most of this industry is bound or is focused on. And there's a lot of money to be made in understanding that. What makes translation slightly different is it's not necessarily chasing consumers. It's, it's in the business of, of chasing culture. So we introduce brands to culture, which by definition is not individuals. It is more to do with a shared. behaviors and rituals. So when we think of culture, we talk about it in terms of networks, in terms of rituals, in terms of artifacts, and in terms of language. So those four things, networks, rituals, artifacts, and language, are what we define as culture, because every culture has that. So when you abstract it out, and culture's a very loaded term, you have culture wars, and you have all these terms, but when you take it and you abstract it out, you go ultimately, it's about the networks that you belong to. Some of those you're born into, some of those might be the fact that you're an Igbo person That's your network that you're defined by. Some of them you may adopt. It may be a religious network that you join and that may be different from the one of your birth. Maybe it's the same one, but it's a network that you join. Then there are going to be certain rituals within those networks. shared codes of behavior, certain things that happen. Again, if you go to church, there's a certain ritual that takes place. There's certain rituals that will take place within, you know, within communities. If you join a skate, if you get into the skateboarding community, there's certain rituals and those will often have artifacts. And artifacts are the things by which you signify, you let people know. So even go back to the master's example, when I was in that store buying the merch, there's artifacts that let you know that, I am part of this club. So I bought a baseball cap. It was like a, you know, with a little master's logo on there. And I sometimes wear that when I'm traveling and I see these old white guys giving me like, they nod at me because they're like, because it's an artifact. It says he's in the club. He understands. Not in that club, by the way, but it's, but, but so, so there's an artifact that sits there. And then there's a language that stands behind that. Now, sometimes that is a actual language. And sometimes that's just the, the dialect, the street slang, the in language. the whole six, seven movement, it's like, what does that mean? So it's all, you break it all down, it's networks, it's rituals, it's artifacts, it's language. And that is the thing that we help brands to understand. So if they want to talk to, when we talk about engaging culture, you have to understand those four things in order to show up in authentic ways. Cause if you don't, you'll be rejected and the culture will go, no, I can see you. I can spot you from a mile and you don't. You don't pass the sniff test. And if you get it wrong, and we've seen lots of examples of brands that do get it wrong, then cultures reject you. But if you get it right, then you embed yourself in that culture. And that's what we do at Translation. It's interesting just hearing you talk about it because I also see how it reflects some of the work that I do. But I think of it very differently in terms of when I look at a cultural map, I have the primary identifiers, the secondary and then the tertiary. The primary are usually things you can't change, what you're born into. could be, for example, your race, could be your gender identity. Then of course, you zone out of that and you start looking at things like the language you adopt or the ones that you learn, but even things like being a part of the military, the school you go to, um the sports you play. If you're a yogi, example, what does that experience look like? Then the more you zone out, you start to see that even people who seem far away, depending on their secondary and tertiary demographic identifiers, they actually have a lot in common and they might have more shared culture than say me and another Igbo person from a number of states on the basis of the experiences that we have where we've grown up and also the traits and identifiers that we have adapted or adopted along the way. So really cool to hear how you contextualize that within the work that you do. So cool. Yeah. it is genuinely exciting. So, you know, for me, it tracks back to that kind of sense of how do you find when you understand and you use that as a framing device, you still then have to take a business challenge and then interpret that in a way that can solve their problem, but using creativity and connect it into culture. And that for me, that's, that's where the magic happens. I want to talk to you a lot more about culture, but first I want to talk to you about your role. You are the president, right? And you're in a leadership role. Have you always aspired to be in a leader? Is it something that was always innate for you? uh Well, uh being part Nigerian, there is, there is, is, you can't, yeah, exactly. You can't help it. uh Never backward in coming forwards, I think is the, is the expression. And it's one of those things where you don't even realize it until you spend more time with Nigerians. You're like, wait, this isn't just like a one-off. This is like, this is who we are. It's a thing. It's definitely a thing. ah So I would say, Again, it's a growing awareness uh that I've had through my life. Part of that, quite honestly, was coming through growing up in church and understanding principles of leadership and having good leaders and people around me and people who could identify from quite a young age that I had a potential to communicate effectively and giving me opportunities to communicate effectively. And then I think the light bulb really went off for me. I was thinking about this. The light bulb really went off for me. m Many years ago, I went to see a guy called Miles Monroe, who again was a Christian speaker, very much em focused on leadership. And I think he'd written a book called Discovering the Leader Within You or something to that effect. And I went to see this guy speaking in London. Um, and again, it was just one of those pivotal moments where, you know, it was a leadership seminar and he was just talking so passionately about the role of leadership and how important it is and what it involves. And I just knew something just clicked in me and I was like, what I'm meant to do. This is, this is me. This is, this is what I'm about. Um, and so I started studying and reading management books and understanding leadership I trained. I was looking at psychodynamic theory and then I was doing like management theory and then I went off and I went and I wanted to understand the more books that I was consuming, the more I was trying to understand how organizations work and what it means to lead them. And then I, and then I thought, I need to get back into education. And so I ended up finding a course, like a master's course, it was like an MBA course, but for people in the creative industry. So it was deliberately designed for people that were running creative businesses. At this point, I was running. design studio. And so I went and did this masters it was phenomenal. It was at the University of the Arts London and it was a fantastic course and I just gained so many skills. And that's part of the reason why in fact they asked me to come back as an associate lecturer, which I did for a number of years as well. uh But yeah, so It's definitely been uh a journey of understanding and awakening and realizing that this is the power of persuasion and the power of being able to articulate yourself clearly and the power of being able to set a vision for people, but also caring for people, coaching people, mentoring is something again that I've done, uh you know, throughout my professional career. And so, yeah, it's something that you have to understand the responsibilities that come with it. and the mantle that sits on your shoulders. But it's something that I love doing and it's a great privilege. I try and be someone who doesn't take that privilege lightly. That's how I've tried to maintain my leadership stance as I've gone through various continents, countries, environments. Yeah, it's been a blessing. It's a genuine honour. Thanks for sharing. I always reflect on what it takes to lead and not just yourself and the people within the organization you lead, but also when you have such an impact on what brands get to do and how they behave. ah That responsibility just amplifies in a sense. uh I think oh what I saw online and I wrote it down is you essentially pride yourself as helping ambitious brands harness the power of culture to solve their biggest challenge. Over this conversation, you've talked about culture a number of times. As somebody who work also at an intersection of culture, I know that culture means different things in different contexts. What does culture mean today for how you work with brands? Yeah, I mean, again, we take it down to that, but that we use that framework in terms of thinking about the networks, rituals, artifacts and languages. And then we then apply that to who are the people they're trying to reach. So I find that the signifiers and those aren't going to be necessarily in the same demographic location. Do see what I mean? So again, if you look at the kind of subcultures, take hip hop as an example, hip hop enthusiasts, and there are many different shades and versions of them. but there are some kind of defining characteristics that you can go, oh, okay, so here are the, here's some of the networks that maybe would appeal to people that have em that kind of interest or at least that identification with that culture. Now the truth is, we're made up of many different overlapping interests, passion points, we're not defined, there very few people that are just singularly one thing. we have the absolute privilege of working with some of the world's biggest and best brands, you know, so we work with the NBA as an example. Um, and it's the way, the reason why we work with the NBA is because we absolutely understand basketball culture and, know, the people who work, in the company are infused in basketball culture. They understand the, the little nuances of language, the artifacts, the It's almost symbiotic. It's like we're so infused in that world and obviously not just basketball when we think about sports and entertainment. And for me, when I look at these aspects of culture, because you can, you know, of course you can start talking about culture and you can start breaking down some of the more contentious aspects of culture. But one of the things that I think is fascinating and the reason why I'm interested in things like music and sports and entertainment, is that they're very often at the tip of the spear of culture. So they are the things that move in a very fluid way. And because of a low barrier, particularly with music, because it's relatively easy now to create music and to distribute music, it's got such a low barrier of entry. What it means is that you can start to see the shifts and you can start to see how culture is changing in the sounds that people listen to. the language, even the locations where people are listening to music. So, you know, I wrote a piece recently where I was talking about how when I was growing up, there used to be, when you used to go to record stores, because I'm old, and you used to go and I used to DJ, but you used to have a little section in a record store, which was called world music. And like, have all these different classifications and genres, but then you'd have a little section there where you'd have world music and you might have like, I don't know. Hugh Masekela or, know, Labie Sifry or like, you know, like non-Western music would go in world music. And it was this little tiny section. Now you think about where we are today and you look at the rise of Amapiano and Afrobeat and K-pop and Latin music, and you look at the impact that's having in the U.S. or in Europe, the world's completely changed. It's no longer this kind of world music is now music, it's like completely flipped. You look at, you go to Coachella and you've got like 30,000 people who don't speak Spanish singing along to every word that Bad Bunny is you know what I mean? And you go, what? You look at the, the impact of like K-pop Demon Hunters, which is now the most streamed content, most watched content on Netflix, bar none. And then you go, and that has infused K-pop, Korean culture. and that is actually been driven, my belief is that there is one demographic group that, because I talked about the limitations of, I guess, classic demographic segmentation, but youth is one example where young people are typically at the forefront of innovation when it comes to culture, because they are always reacting against what came before them. And when you consider that as it stands, even today, 90 % of everybody on the planet today, under the age of 25, lives in the global South. So if you flip that around the other way, that means only 10 % of the world's population under the age of 25 lives in Europe or Everyone else lives in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. And that is where the youth live. So is it any surprise When you then also look at the US and again using music as a metaphor and you see that the fastest growing musical genres in North America over the last 10 years have been K-pop, Afrobeat and Latin music. Where do they come from? Africa, Asia, Latin America, where young people are. So when we start thinking about culture, and this is one of the things that I get most excited about, is that America used to be in the cultural export business. Everything from Hollywood to hip hop, it was exporting it. That's how a kid like me growing up in South London fell in love with America because I was receiving these cultural exports. America is now in the cultural import and export business and increasingly it's in the import business. uh So, know, my CMO likes to say that if you wanted to know what was the pulse of culture in 1984, you'd probably go to Hollis, Queens. And in 1992, you'd probably go to Compton or, you might go to London, but like in 2025, you'd go to Lagos, you go to Santiago, you go to Mexico City, you go to Cape Town because that's where culture is now beginning to increasingly resonate. And I don't think brands and agencies have really figured that out. I don't think they've, I don't, I think they're still looking in the, in the wrong places. And I think. That's what made me most excited about the work then. And through United Masters, plugs into what we like to think of like, you know, because United Masters has it, we're in Lagos, we're in Brazil, we're opening in London, we're opening in Cape Town. So we're plugging into the centers of cultural capital around the world. And then translation plugs into the centers of cultural and financial capital. That's why we're in Dubai, we're in New York, we're in LA. So we're thinking about it in terms of where is the financial capital centers and where is the cultural centers around the world? How do you plug into those? And then how do you then interpret that for brands? And that for me is the game. That's the new game. Really fascinating. First on K-pop, I have a six-year-old. She's in first grade. She comes back after two weeks, you know, she just started. And she's like, Mom, can I watch K-pop? I look it up and I'm like, no, you're too young. She's like, everybody else in my class watches it, you know, they sing the song, they talk about it. I'm just like, no, I'm not gonna do that. And then she nags so much about it. So now we play the song when we drive, right? So she knows how all the music, we've not seen it yet. um But it's really interesting just how young, you know, it penetrates, like it just proliferates everywhere. um And then I was also thinking about in terms of where the youth is. There's a research that recently came out by Deloitte where they mapped something around leadership and they said according to this mapping, they see that Generation Z Gen Z's have no interest in leadership. And for me as a quant and a data person, I'm thinking, I'm sorry, I need to see where those people come from, right? Because I bet it's either the US or Europe. And I bet what is understood as leadership fits very well within this Western lens of what it is to be a professional leader, because I know kids. in Lagos, I know kids in Accra, in Nairobi who are hustling, who want to be leaders, but their own version of leadership is very different from how a lot of organizations in the corporate sector and beyond are thinking about leaders and people who have aspiration to it. And at the same time, to your point around where the future is in terms of human capital, in 25 years, Nigeria, China and India are the most populated countries in the world. In seven to five years, Nigeria is the second most populated country in the world. That is the future where you have the people. A lot of populations in Europe, for example, are aging. Then you need those people who will be all over the world. I guess my question to you, it's good to know that United Masters is actually in Lagos and planting in different places. How does your work currently translate outside of the US? Because I mean, I'm hearing hip hop, I'm hearing entertainment, I'm hearing sports, and those things are still very much American centered or US centered. So just how does it translate? Yeah, great. How does it translate? Great. uh Great question. And I guess I'd come back to something that you said earlier around K-pop and your daughter. So the thing that's important to recognize or that not many people recognize is that this is not an accident that the Koreans identified over 30, 40 years ago, that if they were just a service manufacturing country, it would be a race to the bottom. Right. and I know this, I've spent Korea more times than I can count working with Samsung, but there was a deliberate decision made on, it was a policy decision to invest in culture, in entertainment, because they recognized that if they were just a service and manufacturing country, if that was their... cultural export or their main form of export, that they would again fall down the ladder as other, you know, countries in Southeast Asia would start to develop those kind of manufacturing skills. So they had a deliberate policy to invest in what is now known as the kind of Korean wave, this Hallyu kind of culture. And it encompassed everything from investing in entertainment, in drama in television, in music, in it's not an accident. Right. So this is the thing that I try and get over to people is that this didn't just happen. It's like, why everyone, why did squid game become so popular? Why did K-pop become so popular? Why it's not an accident. There was an inflectionality about this, part of a plan that was, that was done. And that's what people miss. So in answer to your question about what we do outside of North America. the where we've decided to plant our flag as translation is actually in Dubai. So we've launched our first international office in Dubai. And that is because the Gulf States, the GCC kind of region, have recognized they face a similar challenge to where Asia was in that they are rich right now because of their petrodollars, right? They have resource, but they also can see the end that is coming for that that economy. And they are investing in culture and entertainment, sports entertainment culture as the future for those countries. So when you think about UAE, when you think about Saudi Arabia, we think about the countries, Qatar, all those countries are making massive investments into culture right now because they see that as the future of their business and the future of their countries. listened to one of your other podcasts where you talked about how we should think about countries as businesses. And, you know, Nigeria would do well to think of itself as a business and you would change your CEO if it's not doing well, right? Well, if you look at countries in Asia, look at what happened in Singapore. It was run as a business. I've lived in Singapore. It is a business. It's run. You know, there's a social contract that you sign up for when you get there, which is like, follow the rules. You're going to have a good life. Don't follow the rules. You won't be here for very long. The same is true when you look at what's taking place in the Gulf States right now. So that's where we are focusing. And for us, we do major on, um again, when we think about music specifically, our heritage is in hip hop, but we think much more expansively than that. We see that the world is changing as well. one of our biggest artists is a guy called Big X The Plug. He's from Texas, he's a rapper, but he grew up around country music and his latest album is a collaboration. It's a country. music album, and he's collaborated with some of biggest country artists in the country. So for us, and what we're doing in Dubai is fascinating. We're working with Google there. We're helping them to launch Google Gemini. Dubai is one of those uh locations where everybody is a third culture person. So it is that intersection. of and when you start to think about these intersections of overlapping identities, that is Dubai. And so they have this ability and Steve Stout talks about the fact that when he spends time in that region, he says, it feels like New York in 1984. You just know it's about to pop. You know, it's just coming. You can feel it because there's this, this kind of plugged in this, this kind of, and this new world in which we exist. in which these kind of binary identities that we used to have, these kind of nation state identities are breaking down and people are now defining themselves. Again, there was one of your guests, I think, who on one of your podcasts that I was watching talked about home is where your humanity is acknowledged, which I thought was profound. And that's one of those spaces. Dubai is one of those places. It matter where you come from in the world, your humanity is acknowledged when you're there because everybody's from elsewhere. Same as Singapore, everybody's from elsewhere. So you're automatically, you're not othered, you are accepted And so that for us is hugely exciting. That's where we're putting our focus because we can see that in a similar way to what was happening in Asia 20, 30 years ago is happening now in the Gulf States where they are recognizing that culture is going to be the thing that propels them into the future. And we want to be a part of that. And so we are fortunate enough to be working with some great brands out there. Very cool. I'm going to Dubai for Christmas because I need some sun. But Dubai for me has always been present. I mean, there are of Nigerians who are there, there a lot of Brits who are there. Now, even in Norway, there lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of our friends who've moved there. course, February, they have good tax systems and comparisons to Norway, for example. um But it's been, it's a fascinating place and it is a melting pot, very much like London, very much like New York City. So I can see uh the interest. Yeah, that's a good call, I guess that makes sense. um I do want to ask you about then how you, so you're working with Google currently in Dubai. And what do you see in terms of what are trends? So for brands who might be listening onto this and thinking, OK, yes, I'm hearing what you're saying about culture. How do I actually loop it into the work that we do, the products that we put out in a way that materializes in, say, revenue growth? How do you do that quantitatively or qualitatively? Yeah, well, if you think about the rise of something like TikTok, right, so um and the impact that that has had. So we talk about, you we're building out a practice now, which is called culture to commerce and recognizing that there is a very clear line between culture and commerce. And partly that's actually part of the reason why I was keen to go and live and work in Asia, because you see it most clearly in in places like China, where you have, the kind of the delineation between the platforms and commerce is almost invisible now and you have KOLs, you these key opinion leaders is what they call influencers in China. uh And so, and it actually actually ties back to something you said in relation to this Deloitte study, and them saying that young people aren't interested in being leaders. I agree with you, I think their definition of leadership is wrong. Because if you look at the percentage of young people that want to be YouTubers, who want to be creators like over 80 percent, more than doctors, lawyers, accountants, all the classic professions. Now they want to be like creators. What is that if it's not leadership? So I think that definition of what might be classically thought of as leadership is probably flawed, which is why they're coming up with that result. So when you start to think about this cultural trend in terms of this young people, And the impact, for example, of TikTok as a platform. And now you can walk into bookstores in uh the United States. And when you walk in, there'll be like right by the front, it will be BookTok. And because it's such a huge thing in terms of like, a, as a phenomena, like the books that people are reading and sharing on TikTok. So now you walk into like, uh, you know, a borders or, uh, in, in the U S and literally the up there will see BookTok as recommended. on TikTok. And that's the first thing you see as you walk in. That's the power of culture, right? In terms of driving commerce. to give you an example, we saw that um for ourselves, thinking here about the United Master's side of things. So there was a kid, a teenager um growing up in Chile, um started making music. He's 15 years of age. uploads his music onto YouTube, starts making a little bit of a name for himself in Chile. um Lives six hours in a town, six hours outside of Santiago. So he's not even in capital, Then he uploads his track um onto United Masters and we see this track start to skyrocket. And why did it skyrocket? Because some influencers, he got remixed by a couple of cool DJs and some influencers on TikTok. started using it as the background to their video. And all of a sudden, this song just goes through the roof. Now, fortunately, we'd already signed someone had got on a plane, they'd gone down to Chile, they'd seen this kid, they'd signed him onto the platform. And so we were uh able to kind of ride that wave. he went, that one song ended up in last year was the number one most streamed song on TikTok, but... It was the number four most streamed song on Spotify globally, ahead of like all the big names you can imagine. This is a 19 year old with no social presence. He's a kid growing up, his name's Floyd Menor, he's a kid growing up in, as I say, in a town six hours outside of the center of Chile with nothing around him, no support, nothing. And obviously once we signed him on the label, we did everything to kind of help promote him. He went double platinum in the States, triple platinum in Italy, quadruple platinum in Spain, became a global star. We had to get him his first passport so we could fly him to the United States, take him to the Empire State Building, which was lit up in his honor because Bill Ward, he became the first platinum artist from Chile at his 19 years of age. That is the power of culture. That is the power of what a platform can do when that lightning strikes, when you get uh just hitting the zeitgeist and a kid from nowhere can overnight literally, I mean his song ended up on Barack Obama's favorite list of, he releases these tracks like I think he's top 20 tracks of the year and his song was on that list. I was like, my God, that's incredible. So for me, when we talk to our brands, we talk about helping brands to know what's now, what's next and what's not for long. Hmm. to discern between what is happening right now, what is about to happen, and what are the things because so much is happening and it's so quick and so fast, what are the things that are going to be here today but not for long? And that's what every brand wants to figure out. That's what we help them to kind of navigate their way through. I love that. Are they receptive to when you share things that ah goes against what looks currently trendy? I'm trying to imagine for a brand that has been heavily invested in all things US and finally you're saying, hey, listen, we have to look outside. How is that received? Great question. Not all of them are there yet. That's the honest answer. Because for many of them, they are so focused on their existing customer base. So the idea that they should be looking to these culture makers that don't exist in the US, it's a bit of a leap. It's a bit of a leap that they have to make. I think, again, things have changed quite considerably in the time, because I'm an old guy now. but I'd still say, not every, it's not for every brand. It's not for every brand. Um, and we talk about helping ambitious brands and that's who we target. we, we are fortunate enough to work with those brands that actually have some ambition. And some of them, you know, like you have a company like AT &T, it's a massive company. Alexander Bell founded AT&T was the first telephone. the fact that telephones exist is because of AT &T. but they still are an ambitious brand. There's still a brand that absolutely is 100 % American brand, but also knows that it wants to plug into culture. And so we've done some incredible projects with them and continue to do so. I like how you also not just qualify this, but also quantify it. And I'm thinking there's a science behind it, right? Because when you start thinking of culture, and I think a lot of people think of culture as, you know, an art, and maybe it's both. I'm often in workplaces where um sometimes the leaders, you know, they say, Yeah, that is not the culture we have here. And I tell them, what is the culture? Can you tangibly name it for me? Can you tell me what it looks like in action, like today? How have you um modeled or showcased your culture? Because you have culture and language and what we, and things that I said and things that are on set as well. And I always try to explain to them that culture done right can also be quantified. And that's also kind of what I'm. hearing from you in terms of the analysis that goes in the now and the what's coming and what is ephemeral, what will disappear. It's just a trend for now. It's not going to stick. Yeah, I think that's really cool. I can see how that, for people who are not ready, for organizations that are not ready for it, that can, you might meet resistance in the work that you do. Yeah. I mean, I think it was Peter Drucker that said, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And we all know that if you work with organizations, you can have the best strategy in the world. But the organizational culture, and it comes back to your point about leadership, is sometimes you need to understand and break, you need to look at the organization from what are the things that get rewarded versus the things that don't get rewarded? What are the, what are the, the spoken and unspoken, where are the places of implicit power and explicit power, and they're often not the same. So if you're trying to lead any process of change, then you have to understand the underlying culture, which is often not spoken. So yeah, I find that all fascinating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a question around creator-led platforms. So you've talked about TikTok, which is a creator-led platform. What does the future of it look like in the next decade, for example, in terms of brand partnerships? So, I mean, I think the biggest thing that is happening and that's going to impact all of us is AI, right? So generative AI. And so when you talk about what is happening, that is the biggest thing that is happening right now. And, you know, I was having a debate or a conversation with my youngest son I was asking him about what are the 10 biggest inventions. And we were talking about, you know, like the wheel and, you know, fire and like agriculture and the printing press and the internet and electricity. And I was like, yeah, and maybe generative AI. Because it is, it is literally the game changer. When we start to think about platforms and obviously you're seeing that, you know, open AI have launched this platform called Sora, which is kind of like TikTok, but all of the videos are generated by AI. uh It's just the pace of change. If you think about it, like it's what three years. since we've had chat GBT and just think about how much has changed in that period of time. And it's like an arms race between them and Google and, you know, Anthropic and all of the platforms, which are all racing to get ahead of themselves. has huge impacts that I don't think any of us have really fully grasped. know, this, this, idea of artificial general intelligence or, the super intelligence that they're racing towards. is something that even the experts are not entirely sure what will happen when we get to that point. What we can see in terms of the kind of shift that it's having on the industry that I'm in and the industries that the brands that we work with is profound. uh Because you're getting to a place where previously, guess, automation and uh technology was automating away what would be classically considered to be blue collar jobs. uh Now we're in a place where like what they would call white collar jobs. are increasingly being automated. And, you know, what does that mean when you get to a world where, an AI can diagnose often more effectively than a human can in terms of what the conditions are. We're already at that place now where you start to look at like, you know, what is the impact on law? What is the impact on accountancy? What is the impact on classic professions, which were the things that you know, any Nigerian will tell you those are the safe professions. They don't look so safe anymore. ah So I think, I think, you know, just if you're talking about societal change, and you're talking about technology impacting that by far and away, that is the big one. And nobody, nobody knows exactly what the answer is. Least of all, the people that are actually making it, you know, I think I heard uh one commentator talk about it is that we should think of it as almost as if they are creating a new species. And it is because it behaves in ways that is not fully anticipated, because it is essentially we birthing a new form of intelligence. And the impacts of that are what it's based. I mean, have in my work with my team, now we just like, listen, it's here and in three years we will be late. Yeah, so we just have to just jump in now. And I mean, I have agents doing work for me, AI agents. And some people on my team, my chief of staff, for example, it saved us so much. a lot of emails that she has to sift through. But anyways, I think it's here to stay. And I think, of course, there's that fear about, what is this going to look like for us? Which jobs is it going to take? And one of the things I heard, I forget where, that I think is true is AI will probably take the job of the person who doesn't know how to use AI. Yes. ultimately, I think that's kind of what it comes down to is how can we end up many ways in which we can now integrate AI into the work that we do, like the flow process, to also just optimize and free up time for actual strategy human work. And I feel that that will always remain. I might be too optimistic, but I do think we still need. the human being. don't necessarily think at least for now, it might change in five years, that there's an AI that can do the work that you do in terms of how do you look at culture, look at what is happening, and then draw that connecting line as you currently do with the work. It might guess, it might maybe draw from ideas, articles that have been written, but doesn't quite see it in the same way yet. I mean, I might regret saying this in five years. Thanks. right now, there's still that human that is needed behind the AI to help us do it quicker, so to say, you know? Yeah, correct. Correct. And look, you know, if you think about it, um I think back in the 1970s, there was always this race to see when AI would be able to beat the chess masters. But now, as I understand it, most, the most, what they've now got to is the most effective players work with an AI. So this hybrid model, it's a human plus AI, which is that combination of which becomes almost unbeatable. And so I agree with you, I think that we're gonna get to a place where uh our lives will be augmented. I look at the way that my son, he has these meta Ray-Ban glasses and he will communicate with his glasses and he's having conversations, it's just part of his life. It's just something that he's naturally adjusted to. uh And it's enhancing his ability to do, to function. mean, you he has ADHD and he can say, Hey, meta remind me that I need to do this in 30 minutes and to hand off my homework in 30 minutes where I need to do that. And it's just something that he's built into his processes as it seamlessly without thinking. And yeah. So I think, you know, again, we're very fortunate to work with meta as one of our clients and, know, we're helping them to launch the glasses into the public and ironically enough, they're Ray-Ban. So for us, it's like, you we think back to where Steve started. You know, when you had that insight about RayBan, now we work with RayBan. Yeah, it's just, it's this circular motion that's come around. So, but they, they were smart enough to recognize. They learned from Google glasses. Do you remember Google glasses when they were like maybe five, 10 years ago? And they thought they were going to take over the world, but everyone just went, you look like a nerd. Like, what are you doing? And so Meta, I think have been smart enough to go, Hey, if we want people to adopt. this new technology, we have to make it look good. We have to use culture. That's what the partnership with Luxotica is all about. And that's why they work with us, because we help. We help them connect with cultures in ways that are authentic. That's what we do. That's what we're in the business of. I love that. So for brands listening to this or brands that are aspiring to be audacious, are three main things they need to understand about culture and then how can translations help them get there? Well, I mean, the thing about culture is that it's fluid, right? So that's the thing. That's the most important thing is that it's fluid. What happened today is not what's happening tomorrow. And ah so that's the most important thing that they can understand, which is that don't rest on your laurels. So if I was going to say on anything, it's like to understand that it's fluid, ah to understand that there is a degree, you have to have a certain degree of risk, risk tolerance, because in order to connect with cultures authentically, you have to be willing to make mistakes. And again, that's an important uh side of this. there's a side to which, and you can frame those mistakes and you can kind of learn, you can do kind of pilot experiments and you can kind of test and learn as you go. And we're big advocates in terms of helping brands to, you do little controlled experiments, as it were, just think about how they can dip their toes into certain areas that they may not be as comfortable with. So you don't have to go both feet in to something you don't fully understand. So I guess it would be about take a test and learn approach in terms of how you want to approach things. And I guess the third thing that I would say is, you know, look beyond your borders. You know, like we live in a world now where you can't put tariffs on culture. And, uh, you know, it's not one of those exports that you can just, you know, like you just, you know, it's just, can't, you can't, it's going to flow. It's going to flow and you cannot put a tariff on it. So beyond your borders, look to see what's happening in the world. And it will surprise you and hopefully delight you to see what is happening and what young people are coming up with, because that's the bit for me where no, no two days are the same. It's like, wow, something is happening. Thanks, Sherry. I have a question for you before I go into the fire round. How do you think, like we live in a geopolitical era that has become one, right? Something happens in the US, we feel it somewhere else. How do you think brands should engage with politics in this era in terms of, yeah, do they speak up, do they stay silent, and at what costs? Uh, so that's a very big question. And I think it's clear, you know, obviously, you know, we've touched a little bit on the culture wars and I think it's clear that where we are today is very different to where we were in 2020 or even 2016. If you, you think back to where brands were at the time, and I think back to the kind of, there was the, um, uh, the, sort of Nike Colin Kaepernick. ad, which they did. you know, it was like a very large statement. If you think back to 2020 and there was all the black squares on Instagram and you think of all those kinds of things. We did something actually, we worked with Beats. It's probably one of our most awarded pieces of work in 2020. I think it was just after the George Floyd. I think it may have come out in 21. And we did a we did a film for Beats, which was called Do You Love Me? And it was it really tackled the issue of like brands claim to love black culture, but do they love black people? If you haven't watched it, I would recommend anyone to actually watch that piece of film because it's an impactful piece of film uh where we ask that question around, do you love me? Do you really love? Do you really love me? Not the culture, not the affect, but the people behind it. And that was very much of the time it hit the moment it was, you as I say, I think to this day, it's probably our most awarded piece of work because it was in the zeitgeist. Clearly we've moved from there to, you know, um American Eagle and Sidney Sweeney adverts talking about it's all in the genes. And there's this play on words about, is it genes? there a racial undertone? What are they doing here? You know, what's... And that's, again, in my industry, that's the debate in terms of it was a very provocative piece of work or was interpreted as potentially provocative because I had Sidney Sweeney as a white woman. And then they were like, it's all in the jeans and it's American Eagle. And then they were like, wait, is there a subtext? Are you trying to say something here? Is there something here or is it not? And again, you can look at it and say, it's an effective piece of advertising. It certainly caused a debate. you know, it. hit a certain audience and I'm pretty sure that they'll show that sales went up off the back of it. But all of that to say is that we've moved into a different political environment. There's no question in that. We understand that. And I think many brands would feel that they were have been burnt in, you know, in terms of getting too closely aligned to certain political movements. Michael Jordan famously said the reason why he doesn't comment on politics is because Republicans buy sneakers too. And so he had that stance of like, why am going to cut off like my audience? Like when, you know, Republicans buy sneakers. So I think you'll find brands in different places. for me, all of these things are pendulums. They kind of, they, they swing one way, then they're going to swing another way. And I would, I guess my counsel to a brand would be to maybe avoid the extremes on either, on either side, to know who they are, to know who. What is the essence of their brand philosophy? And very often it's in the founders. It's like, did that founder start that company? And the essence of the brand is often to be found in the founder. And so staying true to who they are and not necessarily to be pulled too far in one direction or another direction, but to be the essence of who they are and find the audiences, find the cultures that they can connect with in an authentic way. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. I can sit with that. I mean, it makes sense though as well because I often think about companies that act like plastic bags in the wind. Yeah. They blow where the political currency is. It could be for four years. It could be for longer. And you know, the call is who are you? Are you recognizably you? in every space that you're in, in every political era. And so this is what you're saying resonates with me in terms of you have to figure out what your core is and stand firm in that. And then of course, you know, when I reflect on when it can be extreme around, you know, when we have wars and crises and genocides happening in the world, you know, can we stay neutral? Should we stay neutral? And I think that's something that it's challenging where I work with companies who say we don't know what to do. And sometimes I say, listen, you have to, because on one hand, sometimes when I say to workplaces and employees when I talk to them is, for you, be easy to make a decision. But if as a leader of a company, I make a decision that costs me $1 billion, it's not just $1 billion. It's a lot of families that lose a livelihood. Yeah? And I have to hold that as a leader. And I think that's also the grace that sometimes I'm not saying just let companies do whatever nonsense they do and without repercussions, but also the grace we have to hold for the decisions that oftentimes leaders have to make, not in a vacuum, but just in considering, do I wanna let a thousand people go? Or do I wanna say this thing because this political. win then this demand from the other side is asking for me to do it. So of course it's not easy. It wasn't an easy question I asked and I was just wondering how you thought about it. Yeah. And that is a hundred percent right. mean, I can tell you. So we recently were appointed as the uh agency actually targeting the African-American consumer market for McDonald's. And again, people will have lots of opinions about McDonald's. It's a big global brand and people will feel lots of ways about it. But I had the opportunity to go and they have the, uh they have an association the, organization that represents the black owners and operators of McDonald's franchises. And they had a, they had their seminar. It was in Puerto Rico. uh We got to go as the new agency partner, um, to attend. And it was a genuinely humbling experience for me because I was surrounded by people, black people. who had built generational wealth through management of these franchises. Now I did not know, I don't know if you know this, but I did not know that outside of sports franchises, the McDonald's corporation has created more black millionaires in America than any other organization, right? And it's, again, blew my mind when I realized that that was the case. And then you realize that these are hardworking, good community driven people who are running these businesses and to your point about the responsibility of these corporate leadership to go, wait a minute, what I say and what I do and this kind of, you know, performative virtual signaling or whatever it is can have a real impact on people who are creating jobs in supporting communities. And like it was so impactful to me for me to spend some time with these people who are You it was not just you saw like three generations of families, like grandparents who'd opened up McDonald's stores. Like I was talking to one lady who, know, the founder of McDonald's, Ray Croc, or not the founder, but the guy who made it um as popular as it is. And her husband and how she was working, back in the early sixties was, one of the first people, first black people to have a franchise and she was there. She's an elderly lady. Her son was there. but I was seeing grandchildren who are also learning the business, who came to this seminar so they can understand what it takes to run a franchise, because it doesn't just get gifted to them. And it was, just as somebody who used to see growing up in the UK, McDonald's is, I guess, just like an American brand and like this faceless corporation. And yeah, they make burgers great, but I wouldn't know that story and the impact that they have. And then it's not just the black community. have obviously an association that represents the Latino community. And these are business owners who are literally giving back both in terms of their family and to the broader community. you know, things, nothing is quite black and white. And you have to have nuance in the way that you approach these things. And you have to, uh then there requires a level of humility, which I think is sometimes missing in some of these conversations. to recognize that value creation, wealth creation and community regeneration is often done by brands. And whether we like that or not, that is the facts. That's one of the reasons why, when I was doing my masters, I was reading at the time there was a book called No Logo by a woman called Naomi Klein. And she was talking about how we're gonna move on from brands and we're gonna... we move on from the brand bullies and she had valid arguments and she was making valid arguments. But I did my research to check whether what she was saying was true. And I was talking to young black boys and young black men in particular to ask about their perceptions of brands. And I realized that she had missed something because she missed the role that brands actually play in people's lives. And my thing was, can we help brands be better and do better? We can. then surely we should try and do that. And that would be a thing to do as opposed to just railing against them. So I appreciate that's not everybody's perspective on things, but it's certainly been mine. And I think, thanks for sharing that. do agree. think that, you know, oftentimes when I read this data, dig into, just like, I need to see the real thing. And oftentimes they've not spoken to a lot of people. Basic thing I ask with brands, organizations is when you made this decision, when you came up with this research, was everyone in the room, like everyone who should be there, did you talk to them? Because oftentimes they have not, right? It's usually just afterthought. And sometimes it happens when they put out the wrong thing into the world and then there's a backlash and you're like, shoot. That also happens. Or sometimes they just really do not care. So you can do research. And oftentimes when that research is based on what research should be from a Western lens, you miss out on an entire group of people who make up a majority. And I was also thinking, I also work with Google and Amazon and Coca-Cola. I remember the small companies. I think this was maybe two or three years ago, I got so many emails, messages and people talking about, because I also have this non-profit organization called Diversify. We do really great work, I think across the world and also in the Nordics. People are like, why are you working with this organization? Do you run that organization? I'm just like. Well, not that I owe you an explanation, but listen, I have a team. I have employees. I have people who depend on me, right, for work. A lot of my employees in Norway are people who ordinarily would not get work because in Norway, if you are an immigrant or international with the wrong name, matter the degree, you do not really get opportunities. So a lot of my employees come from this target group that are often excluded. And because of them, we've grown. So, wow, right? And we're doing really great work. But there's that when I'm thinking, am I going to risk Shantani's income for your opinion? If you have an opinion, you can go talk to those companies because I also believe that, of course, I have my values and I will speak it in every room, but we can't all be on the outside fighting. Yeah, sometimes we have to be on the inside changing minds and we need all of those. I need you out protesting. That's great. That's your work. My work is I want to talk to the CEO. Yeah, I want to see what they can change. I want to see what your constraints and I want to see, can we make it better? Yeah, we don't have to fix it all. And oftentimes, you know, people are upset because what they want, word for word does not happen, but they forget constraints and decisions that people have to make. And on one hand, working with this brand, but also running my own company, I understand like it's not easy, but can I talk to them? Can we see what is the middle ground? How can we communicate better? How can we say, listen, there's nothing we can do. We're going to do this and here's why. You don't have to agree. You don't have to understand it, but please trust that we're doing the best that we can. Because sometimes there's also that break in communication where brands don't speak up in terms of they don't even clarify, hey, listen, my hands are kind of tied. but we're doing the best that we can. And then people kind of like think all the most awful things possible. But yeah, basically I'm rambling now, but I guess what I'm trying to say is I hear you and I do agree that it requires a lot of grace. We can't cancel so easily and things are often more complicated than they appear, have a speed round for you. um What legacy do you aspire to cement with your work at Translations? so I'm, I am keen for translation to be seen as the definitive market leader in the culture space. That is the legacy that I want to leave. And in order to do that, I know that we have to create some of our own intellectual property, which is the thing that we are working on in the background to create. I want there to be no question. We are the definitive market leader in this space. That's a very Nigerian dream. love it. Love it. ah How do you navigate fear in business or leadership? Well, think you, I think I love one of the principles that we have a translation was that you run towards darkness. And so that is literally one of the company values. You know, we talk about building the plane while we're flying it and all that sort of thing. But this idea of run towards darkness and don't run away from it. And often the quickest way through a storm is to go straight through. So that is the principle. And the thing that I recognize is that, you know, courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the ability to do it. while you're scared, right? And so it's not the absence of, and I think that's the mistake people make, which is like, I'm scared. That means I shouldn't do it. No, you can be scared. You can have, you can experience fear, but real courage is to do it anyway and to do it scared. And so for me, that is something that a principle that we live by at the company. I love that. have what I live by too, on courage is one courage is a strategy. Hey! My computer is doing its own thing today. um Courage is a strategy and hope is a strategy as well. It's one of things I go by. Because I think people do not understand the work of courage. Courage starts where comfort ends. You cannot be comfortable and be courageous. You have to do the uncomfortable thing. Correct. Yeah, and that is why it is the strategy in a sense, at least for me, how I think about it. At the end of the day, John, how would you like to be remembered? Primarily as a good husband and father. My children are, you know, when I think about leadership, I want to, you you have to start by leading yourself and by leading your family. And certainly for my, three children, I have three wonderful children. And I would love to be, I would like to be remembered as a good father and as a good husband. Those would be the things most important to me. I love that. I really like that. Okay. What is a book that impacted you the most? Um, I love to read. So there's been a lot of books that I read. Um, but I think if I, if I think about one that's probably impacted me the most is probably Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. Um, and that experience of just understanding that even in the most dire situation possible, and obviously Victor Frankl was a prisoner at Auschwitz and lived through most horrific things you can imagine, but still. This concept that we are in control of how we process the world around us. The one thing that nobody can take away from you is how you process what is happening to you. And you have the control in that. control the exterior environment. You can control your response to that environment. And that is the thing that, once I read that, I was like, my goodness, that's how I've lived my life, um which is to control. what you can control. Hmm. I'm just thinking, I think we have a few things in common. Because I'm also the, you know, I am response able. I may not be able to control what happens to me, by God, I control how I respond to it. And something else I live by is my mind is the one battleground I cannot lose. Yeah, I can lose everything else, but I cannot lose my mind, not to myself, not to my mother, not to family, not to the world. to fight to keep that. So yeah. What are you aspiring to in your personal life? Personal life. again, talk about my family and my children are now at the point where they are either young adults. So my oldest is 24. He lives in the Netherlands, not too far from where you are. So supporting them as they've gone through this change. My youngest is 17 and my daughter is 22 and she's at university. So right now it's my focus is ensuring that they have the best opportunities for them to have the best as they approach their kind of, I guess, their careers and their working life and what they're going to do. And they're all very different and they're going in three different, very different ways. um But, um yeah, so I guess that would be my personal objective is to make sure that they are set up for success because every parent wants their kids to do better than them. And I'm certainly one of those. So that would be, I guess, a personal a personal goal that I have right now. um Thanks for sharing that, I love that. And professionally? Professionally, I'm still having a ball. I'm still enjoying myself. I think the potential for a company like ours, both in terms of United Masters and Translation, is huge. I see there is a global potential for it. We have a long way to go to get there. it's a rocky road. There's many storms that we have to run through in order to get there. So I think there's a huge potential. And then beyond that, I want to be able to... um to really, as I say, become that definitive market leader in the space, to really help and enable brands to navigate culture in a way that is both respectful and impactful on both sides. So there's a genuine value exchange, because, you know, in the whole philosophy of the company is based on this idea of value exchange and respecting creators for what they do. And so that is the oh aspiration. And then in the longer term, you know, maybe get back to doing some some lecturing and some teaching and to give back to the next generation. Because that's something I loved to do uh when I was a little bit younger and I would love to get back to sharing maybe some of the experiences that I've had with other people and whether that's in a structured forum or as I continue to do, I mentor lots of people now, but I'd love to do that in a kind of more, I guess, more structured way to be able to hopefully share some of the things that I've learned along the way, along this long and securitized path. love that. Okay, a final question for you. If you could speak to young John, what would you say to him? uh Buy Apple shares and Nvidia. Buy Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Google Alphabet shares. Hey, I'm Nigerian. What do you expect? Yeah, yeah. And enjoy your hair while you have it. So yeah, those would probably be the two things that I would say to myself. Yeah. Nice. Do you think he'd be proud of the man you are today? I think he would. think he would. I think he may have some... I was quite a young, kind of radical young man, so he may have some questions, but I think he would be proud, not least of all, maybe to a degree about my professional achievements, but I think he'd be proud to see the family that we have. Yeah, I think he'd be very proud of that, because I know I am. I love that. Thank you so much, John, for your time. This has been really a great conversation. I think this has been one of the longest conversations I've had on this podcast, and I love every minute of it. Well, I thank you so much. been a real pleasure. as I say, I really enjoyed just being able to have a longer conversation and, you know, sometimes get into things, know, some uncomfortable things as well. That's what it's all about. That's what the connection is. yeah, yeah, thank you. No, this was great. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you for spending time with us on Overnight Wisdom. 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