Brandcenter Keynote Speaker Amber Guild - President, T Brand / The New York Times
Commencement 2021
On the evening of September 21st, 2020 I wrote the following in my journal...
of... you. What lifted me, what raised my spirits, my hope, my commitment to LIFE… was… you..
On the harder days I think a lot about my mother and her life. I think about my grandmother and her mother. The women who came before me and how blessed my life is because of them and the women who surrounded them.
I got my first job in advertising when I was 19 as a secretary at an agency called Bozell. I took it, because the gig paid $10/hr which was a lot of money back then and I needed it to help pay for school.
and the generations before me had sacrificed and fought for me to be at this table – and here we are in this incredible moment, a moment that I believe will mark the beginning of real change in our country and much needed change to our industry… but I was sick. And I didn’t know if I had it in me to do anything beyond getting better.
And then, something crazy happened... I fell in love… with the work. I could not believe people got to do this for a living!
How could I make the “we” better, when I had to focus on healing “me”? I felt alone in a moment all about community, isolated in a time of unity.
I also started to understand why I rarely saw myself or people like my family reflected in advertising – there were not many people in this company who looked like us.
I thought back to my ancestors, to their aloneness, to their resilience, to their unwavering drive to persevere, and realized...
On the harder days I wonder what it must have been like for my grandmother to put my mother, at 14, into foster care, because she spoke up for what she believed in and lost her job as a secretary (a good job for a black woman in the 50s). Even though my grandfather held three jobs and barely slept because of it, they could no longer afford their apartment in the projects and became homeless. They found family members who could take in the boys – but their youngest, a girl, my mom, was the strongest – and she could handle foster care. She could handle foster care, and her mother knew it, because she, too, was the strong one. The burden of being strong. On the harder days, I wonder what all of that felt like for my mother – the strong one, the one who had to go to foster care just when her body was starting to change. How did she feel waking up in a stranger’s home and worrying how she would stop the bleeding. And every day, I remember Nannie B., my great grandmother, who gave birth to 19 babies. Only ten lived to adulthood. And I wonder how she must have carried the lives and hopes and love of 9 children who would never come to know what it felt like to live, love and make their own way in life. I remember these women because they endured for me to be here, at this place. And at this table. And while I sometimes feel lonely here. I am here. And I have to decide what I’m going to do with it. The morning of September 22nd, I would go into New York City for a double biopsy, and one week later I would find out I had breast cancer. I realize now, that journal entry was an entry of someone who was scared. I didn’t know it, but I was at the beginning of my own reckoning – one that would force me to recenter myself, one that would have me acknowledge that what got me here, was not going to get me to where I wanted to go, and one that would remind me of my truth, and of my power. Months later, here I am, healthy and strong. And here you are, accomplished and ready for greatness. And I want you to know that what lifted me up in the darkest moments of these past months was thinking...
I started to think a little more about the impact advertising had on my own identity and how it at times caused me pain, tapped into my hurts, my fears and worries… But now that I was on the “inside” I could also see all of these possibilities… I could see all of the possibilities!!! And that vision, that hope, made me realize I wanted to go into advertising, I wanted to help change it. Not because I was angry at how it treated me, but because I loved what I knew it could be. So, against the advice of my radical left-wing activist/educator parents I decided to use my psychology degree with a minor in women’s studies... to go into... account management! I would spend the next 20+ years exploring and learning from all aspects of the creative industry – from the big agencies like Ogilvy, Y&R and Saatchi to smaller branding and design firms like COLLINS and innovation agencies like T3. And here I am now at an incredible mission driven institution – The New York Times. So, the question still begs – why was I so scared that hard evening, why was I doubting myself? Why was I looking to the strength of my ancestors to find my own? Well, there was the obvious insanity and trauma we collectively went through in 2020. But here I was one of few black women leading a creative organization of this scale – with a mission to change the industry – both in the work it created, but also in the workforce and workplace that creates it – and finally our country and our industry was talking about race – this is the moment I had been preparing my whole life to lead – to lead the regiment into this battle…. except... I had cancer. I had worked so hard for the last 44 years to get to this seat, at this table, in this moment – my parents
I am not alone. I have never been alone, and will never be alone at that table. I sit here with my ancestors, I sit here with my family, and my community. I sit here with Vann Graves who reached out his hand two years ago and gave me a seat on his underground railroad. And now I sit here with YOU. My job is not to carry the weight of that one seat, but rather create more seats for all of you. YOU are entering our workforce at a time that will mark a period of monumental transformation of our creative industry. (No Pressure!) And YOU enter the workforce with some of the most powerful instruments for change – storytelling, creativity, empathy. YOU will show us how creativity can change the world. YOU will show us what creativity can do to advance our civilization. Your power is with, not over. There’s a TED Talk by Benjamin Zander called “The Transformative power of classical music” – in it he talks about an awakening he had in this mid-40’s – he says: “But the conductor doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.” Our creative work is at its best when it awakens possibility in other people. As you go off and join new companies and new teams – enter those communities thinking about how you awaken the possibilities of the people and teams around you.
May 15, 2021
Our creative revolution is not a war, but rather, it is about making music for the benefit of humanity. Your power is with, not over. Listen to your body. I know, it’s a little new-agey, but I am a living testament to what happens when you don’t. Transforming our industry will require staying true to yourself, to your work and to your craft. It will require finding your voice, and using it – even when it makes others uncomfortable. Especially when it makes people uncomfortable. Your body can guide you through that. If you really start paying attention, you will realize that your body actually has a lot to say. You will notice the warmth in your cheeks when you are about to speak up in a meeting – confirming that you have something important to say. And you will notice the heaviness in your body when you don’t say it. It is so easy for us to stay in our minds, and in our thoughts – but when you start really connecting and listening to your body – it will guide you. I stopped censoring myself, worried that sharing my experience might make someone else uncomfortable. And… my ideas began to come more freely, I found a flow in my thinking mind, and I found myself... creative again. I hadn’t even realized it had left me. And lastly, you are always becoming who you are. And I hope you find that notion as incredibly exciting as I now do. It took me until my 44th year of life and a cancer diagnosis to realize it – I am always becoming who I am – I am evolving, growing, changing, improving – I am LIVING! Who you are and what you do is fluid, if you’re lucky, you will have many chapters and expressions of yourself and of your work – whatever your work is or will become. This has been the most freeing thing I have learned this year – and my body has never felt so light, and so healthy. So, Class of 2020 and 2021… The table is now yours, and I can’t wait to see what you do with it. CONGRATULATIONS !!!!