2025 Adcolor Rockstar Award winner Ri-Karlo Handy has spent over 25 years in Hollywood placing diverse talent on production teams, most recently with Apple TV’s Acupulco, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, and the Michael Jackson biopic coming in 2026. 

“You can see in the ROI, the things that are the most successful have more people from more different backgrounds,” he told ADWEEK.

It is certainly more difficult these days to have equity conversations, said Elizabeth Lim, chief of staff and strategy at diverse talent management agency Kensington Grey. She added: “We have the numbers to prove that our voices make sense — literally make dollars and cents — for brands. If you can prove that, then the rest naturally falls into place.”

Black and diverse communities remain the drivers of market trends, and when the administration stops waging war against inclusion, the investments will return, said Black media mogul Richelieu Dennis, the 2025 Adcolor | ADWEEK Beacon Award winner.

“Stay the course,” he added. “Stay in the pocket, run the fucking play. If you’ve been creating value and you continue creating value, you have to find new ways to the end zone.”

Finding success in a dark time

But the way to that end zone is often not linear.

Adcolor emphasized that by presenting unconventional success stories across its stages.

LinkedIn influencer Jayde Powell tried five different corporate roles over seven years before striking out on her own with The Em Dash Co. in October 2022, “operating on vibes” with just a month of savings. Monique Rodriguez was a registered nurse before she started posting lifestyle content on social media, including mixing her own hair products, which led to fast-growing Black haircare brand Mielle.

And the host of this year’s Ctrl+Alt+Lift, reality TV star Rachel Lindsay, was a practicing attorney before going on The Bachelor, and now co-hosts the Higher Learning podcast on Spotify. “My advice is to ask yourself whose life it is that you’re living, and then do the things that you want to do,” she said. “Really use the power that you have within.”

If 2025 was a stress test, Adcolor showed exactly what resilience looks like under pressure.