What do you do?
I spend much of my time as the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategy at Huge. In addition to that, I'm an actor, model, producer, creative director, and dog owner. It's hard to say that I do any one thing because there are so many things I love to do.
What drew you to advertising?
During university, I thought I was going to be a lawyer. I started studying international business but realized after a year that it wasn't what I really wanted to do. I wasn't sure what to do after, so I went to the career center and flipped through a book listing potential roles for each major. A lot of jobs associated with marketing stood out to me, so I switched to be a marketing major and started learning about PR and advertising.
At my university the advertising program was part of the journalism school, so you could only do it if you had already committed two years. I was a junior at the time of my switch and I wasn't going to stick around longer. So I subverted the system a bit and took classes at the art school. I took classes in Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Illustrator to flex my creative muscles and took as many journalism classes as I was allowed.
I had the opportunity to go to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and it was there I realized that I'm just as creative as other people in the industry and I shouldn't shy away from that. I realized I could be a marketing person and an advertising person, where "creativity" was allowed to exist. I knew I had a desire to create compelling stories and narratives to move people.
I came back from Cannes Lions and worked at a small marketing firm for two years. Then I found my footing in the advertising and brand strategy world and moved up to New York in 2015 to further pursue that.
You started out pursuing law. How did you know that wasn't the path you wanted?
I think I had misaligned expectations about what I needed to do in order to become a lawyer, especially as it related to international business. I wanted to become a lawyer because in fourth grade, a substitute teacher told me that I argued too much and I should become a lawyer. So I said, "Yeah I will, watch me."
Law wasn't satisfying. If I have to work hard, I would rather be applying myself to something I'm really interested in. College was an opportunity to learn about myself, so it was fine for me to come to the realization that this thing that I thought I was going to pursue for the rest of my life wasn't the thing I was going to do. I didn't want to spend more than four years in college, but I could still explore as many things as I wanted to within that time frame.
If I have to work hard, I would rather be applying myself to something I'm really interested in. College was an opportunity to learn about myself, so it was fine for me to come to the realization that this thing that I thought I was going to pursue for the rest of my life wasn't the thing I was going to do.
What does being a Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategy entail, and how is it different from your former roles in strategy?
When I started at Huge, I was a planner/brand strategist. In that role, I tackled problems that brands had by understanding users' wants and needs as well as drawing insights from current culture in order to shape strategic ideas. Then I'd create a plan for how to get to that end goal.
With DEI strategy, it's quite similar but the idea is that we're solving very specific problems. I focus my skill set and ability to craft narratives and uncover insights about people and culture to move us forward in a way that gets us to the place we actually want to be.
That means understanding people and what they want from a sense of belonging and then applying to diversity, which is about representation. It's about people feeling like they can see themselves in a place or workforce, for instance, and feeling like they can bring their whole selves or at least the parts of themselves they feel comfortable bringing to work.
Inclusion is about valuing the ideas and presence of people within a place, and ensuring they are not being tokenized or expected to be a representative of a certain group. Equity is about having the agency to own the growth you have, knowing what you need to do in order to progress in your career and feeling like you're an active participant.
Did this role exist before you?
I created this role along with my company. There was an opportunity where they were looking for a specific role. When I learned about that I had been working as a brand strategist for four years and had been doing DEI work on the side. A lot of underrepresented individuals at companies where DEI efforts don't exist end up taking on a lot of that work. I was working on grassroots efforts and I found that was really giving me a sense of purpose, at this company that had invested in me so early in my career.
I wanted to invest in that for other people that come after me as well as for my own experience at the company. Knowing that there was an opportunity to do something more formally, I had conversations with higher ups and let them know my skill sets would benefit the company and the employees working here and also demonstrate the company's commitment to these values.
I'm so grateful to Huge for valuing my skills and seeing the need for this type of thinking in order to solve the problems that exist. Their saying "Okay, now go do it and we will support you" has made all the difference.
Have you seen similar roles pop up in other agencies?
Definitely. There was a recent article that valued the DEI industry at several billion dollars, but it was also pointing a lens of criticism asking if we're spending more money on DEI tools or practitioners as opposed to solving the problems. I think what that point of view misses is that you need people in positions of power who are making focused, concerted efforts in order to solve problems.
Yes, diversity, equity, and inclusion is everyone's responsibility, point blank. But you also need people who are at the helm who can say this is the way we should be approaching this, and these are the questions we need to be thinking about. Knowing that there's someone to go to with the questions, concerns, or fears that you have is important. There's so much about race and DEI that is charged, both for those who have been underinvested and those who are starting to see their position of power differently. The role of someone like myself is not just about having a person there. It's about having someone who's saying, how can we all together move ourselves forward?
Historically, DEI professionals have come from Human Resources but we're now seeing people from more diverse backgrounds—from creative, psychology, or sociology fields. This is more than an HR initiative, it's a people initiative.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is everyone's responsibility, point blank. But you also need people who are at the helm who can say this is the way we should be approaching this, and these are the questions we need to be thinking about. Knowing that there's someone to go to with the questions, concerns, or fears that you have is important.
You've lived in Jamaica, Miami, New York, and Atlanta. How did growing up in different environments shape you?
It's given me a deep empathy for people knowing that we all have our individual fears and insecurities, but in those differences we are connected.
We feel like nobody else has experienced whatever it is that we're feeling. In the North, you assume that people down South could never understand your life and that you could never understand what it means to live in the South. Yes, there's culture shock everywhere, but we're still humans. The things that connect us are so much stronger than the things that divide us. Living in all of these different places has given me an understanding of our humanity.
You're a proud multi-hyphenate. Have you felt pressure to conform to one role or title? How did you learn to embrace all of your passions?
When people learn about all of the different areas I'm passionate about, they ask what is the connective tissue among all of those things. For the longest time, I would tell people that it was about storytelling. It's why I'm a strategist, an actor, a show producer. I felt like it was necessary for me to have a throughline in order for my passions to make sense.
Over time, I've come to realize that I don't need that thing to make sense of it for somebody else. I am interested in all of these things because I'm just me. I'm curious by nature, and I go rogue sometimes and want to approach things from a different angle.
The pressure to conform to this boxed in definition of something comes from people trying to understand how somebody could want to do so many seemingly different things. But for me, they're all connected because I'm doing them. If you want to understand why I'm doing all these different things, you need to understand me.
One of the best managers I had once asked me, "Have you ever thought of becoming a creative?" It was the first time I thought long and hard about whether I needed to define myself by these "creative" pursuits as opposed to "strategic" pursuits. Were those two things complete separate? I got excited because I never thought myself as a creative—I was a strategist with creative tendencies—but after a while I realized I didn't have to exist in one world or the other. I can just exist, and in my existence I can find joy from all of these different areas. I can exist in the gray and that is perfectly okay.
Was that question asked in terms of career?
I think so. In trying to guide me on a path that would give me the most fulfillment, the suggestion was to be a creative so people can easily know about me and my skillsets. But I took that and said yes, but I don't have to box myself in as just a creative. I can and will be both creative and strategic in this industry and still be regarded as proficient.
Those questions and suggestions are, in a way, trying to find your cohesive story or brand message. What are your thoughts on personal branding?
I joke all the time with my friends that I think about my personal brand a lot. I'd be lying if I said I don't see my personal brand as being a multi-hyphenate. But it's the best definition of all the different things I'm doing. There's value in having a clear understanding of what something is and why it exists.
Historically, the way that it works in the advertising industry is that you're an art director so you do art director things. You're a copywriter who does copywriter things, or a strategist who does strategy things. People who start to flex in areas outside of their own are told to just focus on their strengths. The company pays you for the things you're very good at, so typically you see a lot of specialists.
But nowadays you have people who are adopting side hustles left and right, people who are generalists or T-shaped where they might be good at many different things but go deep in one particular area.
The pressure to conform to this boxed in definition of something comes from people trying to understand how somebody could want to do so many seemingly different things. But for me, they're all connected because I'm doing them. If you want to understand why I'm doing all these different things, you need to understand me.
Are there passions you don't pursue anymore?
I used to play the trumpet. I haven't picked up my trumpet in quite some time. I did it for a play that I was in back in 2016, and it was fun to pick up the trumpet and re-experience something I had done for so many years.
I also played hockey as a senior in high school and put that away.
Do you think you lose interest in things or is it that other interests take up more space and time?
It's a combination. Some stuff I do lose interest in. I also realize that there's a certain level of time and effort it takes to get to a level of proficiency. So what is the opportunity cost? What's the tradeoff between investing a lot of time and effort in this new thing versus other passions where I already know the level of effort?
Future goals are often geared towards mastery, for people who are at the top of their game. I didn't have a desire to become a professional hockey player, nor the fire to become a world-renowned trumpeter. When I think about being a strategist, I don't necessarily want to be a Chief Strategy Officer. But I did feel like there was a path in strategy that would allow me to explore so many other things and I was curious about getting on that path to see where it would take me. Strategy is very open-ended, and I love knowing that the next page is empty and I can write whatever I want there.
How do you define meaning in your work?
It's a combination of joy as well as what I want my legacy to be. I drive a lot of joy from DEI strategy, but I also think about how I have an opportunity to leave the world a better place, especially for people who look like me or come from backgrounds like mine.
So much of the way that the world is is not my fault nor the fault of anyone who necessarily even exists right now, but we do have a responsibility to do something about it. And that's what I'm choosing to do.
Do you think work has to be meaningful?
I don't think it always is. Work is a necessary evil, quite candidly. I work because society tells me that I need money to survive. If I'm going to work to exist in society as it is right now, then I may as well do something I will derive value and meaning from. But I don't think that's mandatory.
If I'm living my life and spending the majority of my day doing something that I get no value from, I don't know if I could do that for very long. It's a question for an individual—what is your threshold? What can you stand? I don't think I can stand doing something that I truly do not enjoy for nine hours a day, five days a week, in addition to the craziness that exists in the world and everything we have to put up with. I don't know if I could subject myself willingly to a lifestyle I don't derive meaning from. That is a privilege of mine and not everybody has that privilege. That's why in acknowledging that privilege I also acknowledge the responsibility that comes with having that privilege.
Have you ever felt lost in life about what work to pursue?
Absolutely. If anybody just knows immediately, good for them. I started my first job out of college as a digital PR and social media specialist. I was looking at PR jobs for a while because one company suggested it. I discovered very quickly that PR wasn't for me.
I spent so much time figuring out what I was actually good at. I had all these soft skills, but felt like I lacked hard skills. I felt like a big picture guy, but the minutiae of things were lost on me. I spent a lot of time talking to mentors and acquaintances in the industry who gave me their perspectives. One of my mentors suggested planning. I had never heard of planning; I had no idea what it was. As soon as that option was illuminated, I wanted to explore and dive deep. That's what brought me to Huge.
I didn't think about acting after I graduated from college. I had done short films and helped run a film festival with some friends of mine. But when I moved to New York, acting was the last thing I thought I'd do. A colleague at Huge who is also a playwright saw something in me and cast me in a short play of his. We won this playwriting competition which felt really good.
I asked myself, "What if instead of getting pulled into these things, I start pushing myself into these things?" That was a revelatory moment when I realized that I could shape my own narrative. I could pursue things that interested me. Along the way I may not know exactly where I'm going, but that's exactly what I'm going for. It's all about the journey of the discovery, the stepping into the unknown. That's what wakes me up in the morning.
So much of the way that the world is is not my fault nor the fault of anyone who necessarily even exists right now, but we do have a responsibility to do something about it. And that's what I'm choosing to do.
What would you recommend for people who are feeling lost?
Embrace feeling lost. It's okay to sit with it and feel confused. You should also use some of that fear to pay attention to what the fear is telling you. Is it saying something is scary and you shouldn't do something? Maybe you should try it and step into the discomfort. Use your feeling of being lost as a compass.
When you're lost, you're aware of all the things that you could be doing but you haven't picked anything. You have analysis paralysis, the fear of making a choice, so just choose something. You have to start somewhere in order to get anywhere.
Do you think your childhood self would be surprised by where you are now?
My childhood self would be very surprised. I would hope that his sense of curiosity would allow him to embrace the reality of where we are. He may not have known exactly what we were going to do or who we were going to be, but he was really interested in the possibility for anything to happen.
You can find Darien on his website or Instagram.
