30 Under 30 in Marketing & Advertising: The Visionaries Redefining Brand Engagement in 2024

Amala Okpala

Amala Okpala led Meta's first BIPOC brand audit with the goal of assessing the amount of multicultural brands the company manages. Her role is focused on providing economic opportunities for companies with diverse owners: She manages more than 65 BIPOC-owned brands including Telfar, Topicals and Tower28, consulting them on how to build their social content strategy, grow audiences and increase revenue through commerce solutions like Shops Ads and Instagram Checkout. Okpala has sourced over 500 diverse-owned businesses and has driven her clients' revenue on Instagram by 300% year-over-year.

Quinn Favret, Hassaan Raza

Video is great for advertising. But studio-grade commercials cost a lot of time and money. Enter artificial intelligence. Raza, with cofounder Quinn Favret, 23, launched Tavus to let sales folks at outfits like Meta and Salesforce create hundreds of personalized videos for their offerings in seconds. With Tavus' tech, you record your voice and face once, and the company's AI will clone the content into thousands of custom videos that can be tailored to specific customers and products; food delivery startup Wonder records videos of their chefs thanking each customer by name for dining with them. The idea is to build loyalty and to make cold sales calls feel less "cold." "Relevancy comes through personalization," Raza says. "We live in an economy where our attention is our most scarce and most valuable resource." Launched in 2021, the company has secured $25 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and others.

Chinonye Vanessa Mbonu

One of the youngest on the NAACP's senior leadership team, Chinonye Vanessa Mbonu has played a significant role in the organization's digital strategy by engaging younger populations to participate in social justice and equity efforts. Her campaigns have raised more than $15 million for the association through individual donations. Her creative strategy has grown the NAACP's email marketing list by 30% and its social media platforms by 3,000% in three years. She also co-produced "UNPCKD," a co-branded series with The Webby Awards that explored the most pressing issues facing communities of color online.

Adrian Alfieri

Adrian Alfieri founded Verbatim, a full-service content marketing agency that helps high-growth startups build content engines, in early 2022. The bootstrapped company has worked with about 150 companies, generating more than $22 million in revenue for its clients, which include OpenStore, Polywork and Goody.

Alexandre Bocquet

In January 2022, Alexandre Bocquet bootstrapped his digital marketing recruiting platform, Betterly, with $100,000. The company, which has helped hundreds of independent workers find digital marketing gigs, says it hit $1 million in revenue in its first year.

Jackson Corey, Lucas DiPietrantonio

Since 2017, Lucas DiPietrantonio and Jackson Corey have bootstrapped Darkroom, their marketing firm that provides growth and digital strategy and execution services to companies such as Crate & Barrel, Olipop and Joybird. Marketing education is also a priority for the pair, who launched Darkroom University, an online resource of over ten marketing strategy courses, this year.

Marian Dimaano

As the first female director of partnerships in the White House's Office of Digital Strategy, Marian Dimaano is in charge of strengthening the White House's online presence by collaborating with both traditional entertainment talent and digital content creators. Her work helps expand the administration's reach and generate more engagement with the American public via online platforms. Prior, Dimaano led public relations at talent agency Digital Brand Architects.

Chase Dobbie, Everett Vane, Cam Wilkie

The trio cofounded the bootstrapped func.media in 2017 in Wilkie's parents' garage. Since, the digital marketing agency has worked with companies including Lamborghini, IKEA and Procter & Gamble. Func.media's digital strategy and marketing efforts helped e-commerce company Deliverr get acquired by Shopify for $2.1 billion--Shopify's largest deal to date. Func.media says the agency has seen 710% revenue growth in the last four years.

Nathaniel Gaynor

Since joining McDonald's in 2018, Nathaniel Gaynor has been on a mission to push the fast food brand toward cultural relevance. Gaynor leads multi-million-dollar brand campaigns that target younger audiences by focusing on Gen Z subcultures like gaming, fashion and film. His campaigns have resulted in 1.2 million new 18-24-year-old customers since 2019--accounting for 63% of McDonald's total customer growth.

Kévin Combe, Jean-Maxime Larouche

The duo's Hippoc, which they cofounded in 2020, uses AI models to help companies predict an ad's performance before a campaign goes live--eliminating the need for costly A/B testing and time-consuming experiments. Montréal-based Hippoc has raised $3 million from private equity and has worked with companies including Nissan and Mazda, which Hippoc helped reduce cost per acquisition by 53%.

Rafay Iqbal

Three years ago, Rafay Iqbal founded Drip Studio, a digital creative agency specializing in branding, websites and capital raise decks for startups. Since then, they have assisted clients in raising over $500 million and supported environmental goals by working with scientists and engineers to develop sustainable technology and solutions.

Brandon Smithwrick

At crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, content marketer Brandon Smithwrick runs all content marketing operations. Prior to Kickstarter, Smithwrick was head of content at music creator startup Songfinch and content team lead at Squarespace, where he led a team of content strategists and social strategy, including for Squarespace's Super Bowl ad campaigns. He's also won a Webby Award for leading content strategy on a Squarespace campaign with singer Björk.

Aditya Agashe, Neel Mehta

Aditya Agashe and Neel Mehta, Microsoft and Google alums, cofounded Fiber AI, a Y Combinator-backed marketing SaaS startup, in January. The company, which uses AI-powered marketing solutions, has raised $4.3 million from investors including Rebel Fund and Soma Capital.

Roy Itzhaki

In 2020, Roy Itzhaki founded BizDev Labs, a company aimed at revolutionizing how B2B SaaS companies strategize their go-to-market plans. Since then, the bootstrapped company has advised more than 60 clients who have collectively raised over $800 million in funding, Itzhaki says. The company says it now generates over $1 million in profit annually.

Jonathan Jadali

After founding Ascend Agency in 2020, Jonathan Jadali has built the public relations company to 20 employees and more than 20,000 clients. Jadali says they are anticipated to reach an annual revenue of $12 million for the current fiscal year. During the pandemic, the company launched the Ascend Gives Back initiative to provide nonprofits with free PR services.

Shauna James

In four years, first-generation Caribbean-American Shauna James went from a temporary assistant to digital marketing senior manager of Black music at Atlantic Records. When she is not developing and implementing creative marketing strategies, such as rebranding Gucci Mane's music label 1017 Records, she is empowering and guiding young Black women who lack mentorship in the entertainment industry.

Sophie Jamison

Sophie Jamison started her TikTok channel, posting two videos per day, in mid-2019. By the end of 2020, she had gained 2 million followers. That's when Nerf hired her as the first-ever chief TikTok officer. In 16 months, she built Nerf's TikTok following from scratch. Now, Jamison is chief TikTok officer at kitchenware brand Made By Gather where she leads influencer marketing, content creation and paid social.

Shray Joshi

Shray Joshi founded Good Peeps, a full-service marketing agency focused on helping consumer packaged goods companies, in 2022. The company scaled from one to ten employees this year and has generated $100 million in revenue and over 60 million monthly views on social media channels for its portfolio of brands, which includes Chomps, Nomadica and Fly By Jing.

Sikander Sonny Khan

Sikander "Sonny" Khan is responsible for creating and executing marketing strategies for Microsoft's Bing, an AI-powered search engine and chatbot. His work has helped Bing climb to 100 million daily active users. As a side project, Khan also founded the Paani Project, a social enterprise that aims to end water scarcity in Pakistan. After collecting $5 million in funds, Paani has built over 15,000 wells, benefiting over 1 million women and children.

Bridget Kyeremateng

Born in Italy to Ghanaian parents, Bridget Kyeremateng has focused her career on amplifying diverse voices and creators through marketing campaigns, including for Tumblr, Spotify and Twitch. At Tumblr, she secured collaborations with Jameela Jamil, Derrick Adams, Lauren Jauregui, MTV and Planned Parenthood. At Twitch, Kyeremateng has provided more than 700 diverse creators with discoverability opportunities on and off the platform. She also cofounded Brooklyn-based collective Applauding Power, which supports BIPOC women in networking both professionally and socially.

Jamie O'Brien

Grappling with eczema herself, Jamie O'Brien has always been interested in medical skincare and science. Now, she's making a career marketing it. She began as CeraVe's first global marketing manager following its L'Oreal acquisition and helped expand the brand to more than 20 countries. At SkinCeuticals, also a L'Oreal subsidiary, O'Brien now leads anti-aging and sun care innovation, which she says drives over 90% of the brand's growth. Her most recent launch? Marketing the award-winning anti-wrinkle face cream A.G.E. Interrupter Advanced.

Simone Jackson

Simone Jackson leads global marketing initiatives and brand campaigns for Spotify including this year's Spotify Wrapped and a partnership with Roblox, which included the launch of a new music portal on Spotify Island called Planet Hip-Hop that celebrated hip-hop and increased traffic by more than 10 million visits. Jackson also spends her time as a mentor at 4A and Spotify's PULSE Fellowship Program, a 1-year creative development program for Black professionals.

Yazmin Cazares

Yazmin Cazares manages digital creative marketing and campaigns across Disney, Disney+, Hulu, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm and 20th Century. She also leads partnerships with Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Snapchat and Google, handling ideation and production of digital content with filmmakers and cast. For "Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," Cazares pitched the idea to disable comments across social media platforms to create a spoiler-free environment for fans. For "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," she had the cast and filmmakers take over their social media platforms, resulting in two Webby Awards for the digital marketing campaign.

Bobby Palmieri

Bobby Palmieri cofounded Lilo Social, a bootstrapped growth marketing agency with 26 employees, in 2016 with over-30 cofounder Zac Fromson. In the past year, the company has achieved a revenue of over $3.5 million. They lead e-commerce growth for companies including Bauer, Microsoft and Bleacher Report.

Samyutha Reddy

At Jasper AI, an AI platform that allows companies to create on-brand content, Samyutha Reddy is the sole marketing lead dedicated to the enterprise marketing segment. This included spearheading Jasper's Series A announcement of $125 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to the company.

Ari Rush

When Toronto-based Ari Rush founded digital performance marketing agency Rush Ventures in 2014, he was 17 years old and hit six-figure revenue in its second year. At 20, Rush dropped out of college to pursue the agency full time. A Google Partner, Rush Ventures, which was acquired by Brandwidth Marketing, a subsidiary of growth consultancy Next 15, provides companies such as Audi and Hallmark Cards with SEO and SEM solutions. Rush said the company is on track to hit $6 million in revenue this year, following $4.3 million last year.

Tom Shea

In a crowded digital advertising market, Adgile Media Group is focused on the physical with its truck-side advertising. The tech-enabled, mobile billboard company, cofounded by Tom Shea and over-30 Max Flannery, has worked with brands such as Studs, T Mobile and Milk Bar. Adgile Media Group raised a $5 million seed funding round and said it has delivered 1 billion media impressions.

Dani Stevens

Having pursued a career in social media for most of her adult life, Stevens currently leads creative social and influencer strategy for Domino's. She drives brand innovation through organic social media activations to the pizza company's 25 million online followers.

Alexis Unwalla

Alexis Unwalla has been in the beer business for the last seven years, holding roles from creative strategy to digital marketing, e-commerce and merchandising. Her current role oversees marketing spend and strategy for Michelob ULTRA's partnerships with the NBA, WNBA, F1 and the PGA.

Charlie Weber

Charlie Weber has been at Max since he was a fellow in 2016, working his way up to lead promotions, partnerships and social media strategy for shows including "House of the Dragon," "Euphoria" and "Succession." Part of the LGBTQ+ community himself, Weber prides himself on sharing diverse stories: When marketing sitcom "Sort Of," Weber and his team introduced the platform's first nonbinary, lead character with a robust influencer campaign. Weber has one Emmy Award and one Emmy nomination.