Nicole Jeter West Gets Backup in Fight for Marketing’s Underdogs

If a private equity firm functions ideally, it purchases a struggling company or organization, fixes what’s broken, and returns that entity to the world in better condition than it was found.

When Nicole Jeter West looked at the sports, media, entertainment and nonprofit sectors, their cultural environment was typically the broken element. West made a nearly three-decade career as a marketing and strategic executive with the New York Knicks and Liberty, the United States Tennis Association, Legends and the campaign to bring the Olympics to Los Angeles in 2028, before joining Underdog Venture Team as its CEO last year to help diverse founders build their brands.

“You have the CEO who’s Black and Puerto Rican and a woman; the majority of my leadership team is made up of women from all backgrounds; you have people in our company who identify as gay; then you have people in our company who have vast experience in sports, others in media, others in entertainment,” West said. “We bring together a mini U.N., and it is a reflection of the communities we serve. … That’s what brands want, and it’s what they should want.”

Today, private equity firm NewSpring announced the acquisition of Underdog with the intention of forming Underdog & Company—a firm all its own designed to acquire companies within the sports, media, entertainment and nonprofit sectors, and address their lackluster commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

By giving companies the resources to find and afford diverse talent, make strategic acquisitions and open a far broader worldview, Underdog & Company intends to prepare them for a world in which myriad streaming services, niche sports leagues, and athletes with name, image and likeness deals have no need for a monoculture.

But if an organization’s approach to DEI involves hiring an arbitrary number of people on a short timetable while doing nothing to address the culture surrounding them, it’s courting catastrophic failure. West—who will still serve as Underdog Venture Team’s CEO as it becomes an Underdog & Company subsidiary—asserts that real commitment to inclusion is a long-term proposition, and that they’re prepared to wait for investments to yield their desired returns.

“In Adweek recently, there was an article about why marketers of color are quitting: That’s a real issue at the brand level and at the agency level,” West said. “The unfair expectations that are being put on those marketers to deliver and not get supported in the way that they need to… that’s an issue for our industry.

“How are we addressing that? What are agencies bringing to the table to help address that, and what are brands doing to figure out how they can continue to foster and grow great talent, but also retain that talent?”

Laying the groundwork

In her time at the helm of Underdog, West and her team worked with organizations including the USTA, Athletes Unlimited, the Jackie Robinson Foundation, Major League Soccer, Pokatok Festival and TelevisaUnivision. Underdog helped these groups tell their stories in ways that are relevant to the specific audiences they’re trying to reach. Underdog has attempted to lead by example, West explained, using a diverse team to offer a varied perspective.

But she has concerns about what such efforts will looks like in the near future. Citing the Supreme Court’s recent ruling striking down affirmative action initiatives at colleges, West noted that the downstream effects will make it even harder to create more inclusive workplaces and diverse leadership groups—making investments like NewSpring’s acquisition of Underdog increasingly important.

“It’s saying that diverse agencies—groups that have intentionally built diversity as part of their DNA—are not just nice to have in the market, [they’re] a necessity in the market,” West said.

According to a 2020 report by McKinsey, companies with the most gender-diverse leadership teams were 25% more likely to have above average profitability than their least diverse counterparts. For the most ethnically diverse firms, it’s a 36% edge. A 2018 report from Gartner found that a highly diverse workforce is 30% more productive than a more homogenous group.

But an inclusive workforce can’t simply be snapped into existence. West notes that the intentional hiring and acquisition that builds diverse companies is “not the fastest path,” but it is the most realistic. Harvard Business Review noted that 60% of companies had DEI plans in place, but only 23% have goals attached that would improve leadership representation by gender. Just 16% have similar goals for representation by race. 

“There’s the intention,” West said, “but then there’s the actual tactical approach and how is that showing up day-to-day in your business and helping you get to the long-term goal?”

What inclusion looks like

In light of the affirmative action ruling, West suggested companies should not only commit to inclusion, but become more intentional about it.

That doesn’t mean creating a three- to five-year plan that puts pressure on new hires while nominally changing your company’s culture. It can start as small as changing the makeup of one homogenous group on a client’s account so it reflects the diversity of their consumers, while building to more diverse recruiting and hiring practices.

It’s small, daily steps out of the known and familiar toward a future that West and her Underdog colleagues have seen embodied in multiple partners.

“It looks like people feeling comfortable in their own skin in your organization. It looks like people feeling like they matter,” West said. “Not just their value as far as compensation and the things that should be table stakes, but that their culture and background and experience matter at the table—and that is something that is beyond valuable.”

From a marketing perspective, NewSpring and Underdog are betting heavily that brand partners, consumers and sports fans are going to want to see themselves in the companies the firm is helping. They’re going to want to see evidence that someone within the company knows and understands their culture and who they are as people beyond the core demographic.

As West and Underdog have discovered—and are about to share widely with NewSpring’s help—the best way to create an inclusive brand worth bragging about is to actually include as many voices as possible at its table.

“If you as a company are intentional about social impact, are intentional about diversity and equity and inclusion, and you are intentional on sustainability—all of the things that are important to the mindful consumer and fan today—then that should show up through your brand storytelling,” West said. “There shouldn’t be a disconnect.”