Young Changemakers: Valiant Freeman in Conversation with Diana Marszalek

0:01Diana Marszalek: The Provoke Podcast brought to you by Provoke Media and produced by the international broadcast specialist, Marketeers.

0:25Diana Marszalek: Hello and welcome to the Provoke Media Podcast. I'm Diana Marzalek. I am the managing editor of Provoke Media. And I'm very happy today to have with us Valiant Freeman, who is a senior creative at Weber Shanwick and one of our four 2026 Young Changemakers. Welcome, Valiant.

0:46Valiant Freeman: Hey, how you doing?

0:47Diana Marszalek: Good, good, good, good. I'll just explain a little bit to those who don't know about our Young Changemakers. It's an annual program that we launched to recognize rising talent from underrepresented backgrounds who are making a difference in the communications industry. That would be you, Valiant. And not just through professional accomplishments, but, you know, people like you have showed their leaderships and efforts to make the industry a better place for others. The program originally focused just on young women. So you are actually our first honoree. So welcome. You're like groundbreaking in many, many ways.

1:22Valiant Freeman: Too kind, too kind.

1:24Diana Marszalek: So, Valiant, you have built an impressive career right now that includes Sesame Workshop, Google, Weber Shanwick. but you also have a very strong commitment to others and something that rigid in your own experiences and something that made a lot in your application and your selection. As a young changemaker, so welcome.

1:45Valiant Freeman: Yeah, thank you. I mean, all that is super flattering. I'm trying to get better at taking compliments, so everybody was really nice to hear. And also, too, just to be honored with the young changemakers' distinction. I think that's something I wasn't really going for. It was just like something I was really honored to even be in consideration for. And it was, I just thought it was really cool that we were doing something like this. And for me on the history of it all, yeah, like it's still taking me a bit to like all being the first of anything is always one of those things where you feel like you're landing on the moon.

2:25Valiant Freeman: And you feel kind of a little out of place. But to me, just growing up with having three sisters, being raised by my mom, having a majority like women, aunts, cousins. I just think for me, anytime I'm able to follow in a woman's place, I think I'm and like lead the path that they've led for me. I think it's truly an honor. So, I mean. So we love you.

2:53Diana Marszalek: So right now the podcast is over because you said everything you need to say.

2:57Valiant Freeman: So, yeah.

2:58Diana Marszalek: So, hats off to you. I appreciate hearing that. I mean, tell me a little bit about your history. I know that that, as you mentioned, is something that I did read in your nomination, is this sort of, you've taken on leadership and, you know, as you said, raised by a single mom. And you take being a brother really seriously. And tell me a little bit about your story and how that has kind of parlayed into your working life.

3:25Valiant Freeman: yeah no I yeah I that's just something I think with any I think my foundations is a big part of like why I even just started in like advertising marketing communications in general I think for me growing up with the background I being black American having ties to like African ancestry but also, too, a big thing, having family tied to the South and things of that nature. I think the biggest thing that kind of got me into communications was storytelling. I think that was, like, the biggest thing that is pretty present in my roots. I think just growing up around a lot of older relatives, I was always obsessed with just hearing a lot of stories from them.

4:15Valiant Freeman: But to me, the stories were really cool because they always had this double meaning a little bit. It wasn't just stories about how they grew up in America or their journey to, their ancestors' journey to, through the Great Migration to the North and things of that nature. But it was also this double meaning as well about just how to survive, honestly, in this country. And to me, I just always picked up on that double meaning. And to me, that double meaning has always been about what I was heavily taught about because self-education is super important in our family. No matter our socioeconomic status, no matter the schools we went to, any of that nature for us, my family was always pride ourselves on you have to educate yourself first.

5:02Valiant Freeman: And the first book that you really have to understand is the one that's looking at you in the mirror. And you had to do that from a really young age. So perception was this thing I was tackled with right away, immediately. Probably way before I hit puberty, I would say I had to understand myself really quick and really early. So we had to grow up pretty fast. But for me, it was a really good thing because all these stories I was around was preparing me to not only how I can learn to define myself, but also know that even though self-definitions are going to kind of clash and have some tension when I go into the real world, because I think the reason why I really do love working in media, especially in this day and age, especially in my generation of Gen Z, I feel that we are trying to combat a lot of those, like, binary definitions, perceptions that get coded upon underrepresented people like myself, not just from a racial standpoint, but gender, sexuality standpoint as well, even disability standpoint.

6:07Valiant Freeman: And I think that's, to me, what excites me, And that's what kind of led me down this path from, you may look at it, oh, it looks like I would just kind of start doing anything you wanted. But if you look at through line, why I went from graduating Xavier, working for a golf tech firm, being promoted pretty early in marketing, I'll be honest, got kind of bored of that. And I was like, I want to really give my hand at this creativity thing because storytelling was something, like I said, just grew up with. But it's also something that I was figuring out, not just from an education standpoint, just always being interested in not just like black studies, but also to just history and just history from around the world, not just in America, things of that nature.

6:55Valiant Freeman: for me it was just always this through line was how the best way I can tell a story about what's really happening around underrepresented people and people that look like me in this day and age how has those frameworks of our ways of thinking about these people from a perception standpoint has changed truly and how can I use stories and I think if you go from working after leaving that gov tech firm, working those seven jobs to get into this field. Everything I did and then going to Google and Sesame Street and then landing at Weber, everything has been this through line. Like, how can I tell the story about what does a 21st century underrepresented person look like in today's day and age?

7:36And how can I use brands to do that and kind of leverage their corporate social responsibility

7:41Valiant Freeman: to make sure that how they're showing up and who they're showing up for isn't the usual people that we think of when we think of an audience or how can underrepresented people actually, because their influence is becoming so much larger than people have ever thought before, how can we make sure they're seen and not just seen and heard and reflected and how can we also use earned media, in my sense, to kind of go one step further and make sure how can they be actual tangible parts of the storytelling that we're doing brand. So I think for me, everything has come down to storytelling and that storytelling at its heart for me is like, how can I change and shift the perception about people see someone when they're seeing someone like me or someone of a different sexuality, gender, walking down the street?

8:35Valiant Freeman: How can we shift their thinking in terms of, no, this is an actual human being and they have a whole story that they need and want to tell.

8:42Diana Marszalek: So that's just my motivation. I'm sorry to interrupt you. It just sounds like that's been something that's sort of ingrained in you from early on, right? To, I don't want to say fight stereotypes, but to even, to look beyond the story, right? Yeah, yeah.

9:00Valiant Freeman: Look beyond the headlines. A really accurate way to say it, yeah. Do you find that, I mean, when you came into the communications industry, did you find what you were looking for in your ability to do that? I mean, any ambitious journey is going to have a few hiccups. Of course. no I definitely I definitely had to like

9:34Valiant Freeman: I think the biggest thing when it came to like when I came in this industry and if I actually had to if I actually was able to start doing that right away the quick answer is no I was not able to it definitely took some time because I think once again I think the interesting thing about this form of communications in particular when I started transitioning and seeing the potential of earned media i think in we can just narrow it down to earned media if you look at a keyword in earned media the word media is there and we think about media media is i talk to my colleagues about this all the time especially the younger people yes what we do from a creative standpoint for them yes it's really fun it's amazing but also So we can also have fun, but also be purpose-centered because the key word media, media is one of the most powerful tools that this country was founded upon.

10:31Media isn't just the newspapers, but it's the stuff that's said in institutions of power that don't always get broadcasted out.

10:41Valiant Freeman: It's the gossip going on in the barbershops or the nail salons. It's the stuff that's on the streets and stuff. Now some of that is translated to social media, but media is a powerful tool where it can control how people think and perceive things. So for me, of course, I wasn't going to have success, right? Because I'm going against a thousand-year-old thing that I'm trying to transition from thinking in such a binary way. This is, in terms of binary, I mean like a one-to-one thinking framework in terms of we set up this is who these people are or this is what this story is solely about and therefore this is the output.

11:23Valiant Freeman: It's not – nowadays we have to realize that that story is so much more complicated. Therefore, the audiences that we're speaking to are so much more complicated because not only through the power of social media and the Internet, a younger generation was able to start to understand themselves a little different, but then also latch on to a broader range of influences and cultures from around the world. So you have a complicated mix of people. Not only are they underrepresented, but then also they're pulling from underrepresented cultures in Spain or France or Germany because they were listening to music, watching movies.

12:01Valiant Freeman: So you have this really like camouflaged community coming up right now, these like Gen Z, Gen Alpha, where they're trying to figure out their own interpretation of who they are. but for me that's such an exciting place to be when we think about earned media because at the heart of earned media is this idea of media and the great thing about earned media a lot of people know is that the reason why it's having such a a big moment right now uh overpaid media in particular is because organicness is at the heart of it that's the whole origin story of like earned media and for Weber in particular, a lot of my colleagues, especially like Gen Z and younger, I think we feel very honored with that because I think a key word in our generations are authenticity.

12:50So how can we make sure that we're going up against this powerful institution in

12:55Valiant Freeman: media and using the earned capabilities about this organic authenticness to really make sure we're not just regurgitating stuff that's already been said, done, but really pushing ourselves to be like, if this underrepresented group is really rising to the top, why can't we actually make sure they're the key demographic that we're talking to? And just because you're talking to them, that doesn't mean you're going to lose your other traditional core audience. And that is a challenging thing for brands to get a hold of sometimes because, like I said, we have to break a lot of these binary molds that we have in our heads when it comes to audiences and media.

13:31Valiant Freeman: But it's something that needs to be done, but it's going to be, I haven't accomplished everything I wanted to. I think I've done a decent amount so far, but I very much feel like I have a lot more work to do. You do, fortunately, have a long career ahead of you.

13:47Diana Marszalek: But I mean, I'm hearing you and it's very exciting and it's very daunting at the same time. And one thing I appreciate you hearing is that you are up or you're saying is that, which I've thought for a while, you know, we have these earnest efforts, but we're up against hundreds of years of the way the media is, right? Of the way this culture is, of the way demographics have been spoken to. And so it's hard to break through, right? I mean, it's mindsets that have been here for generations, and hopefully it won't take generations to break through. But you are fighting the good fight. I mean, are brands, do you find them hesitant?

14:35Diana Marszalek: Do you find them welcoming? Is there a mix? Do they know what to do? It's daunting. There's a lot of moving parts here.

14:43Valiant Freeman: yeah no and hey too the when it comes to brands like which brands know what like which brands are comfortable kind of i mean like mixing it up i feel that it is a mix right now from what i've seen from my day-to-day and it just kind of depends on leadership honestly and how comfortable leadership is with honestly just listening i think a key a key part of a relationship is listening and i think when it comes to brands and this type of work that we do the ones to me i feel like we always do the best work with other ones who listen especially in this earning space and the great thing about the earning space right now and also to your point the challenging part about it is once again we're in a realm of communication to marketing where um i personally this is just my personal opinion i i understand why everyone wants the advertising agency to be the the agency of record all this stuff but from my day-to-day and just seeing the impact earned has and the reason why i love earned so much is this multiplicity and at that core of the authenticity is the multiplicity that means that earned in my opinion can and a lot of other people's opinion it can do so many different things yeah and i think that to me once again we're talking about this idea of identity for underrepresented people not just from a race standpoint but all different types of categories right now they really want the consent to not to be a single thing to take a word from a social theorist fred molten but they really want to feel like oh i could be anything i want to be and right now that's always tough for brands a lot of brands to hear because, once again, a lot of these are legacy brands.

16:35Valiant Freeman: So when it comes to legacy, they're always like, oh, I just need to uphold, like we were saying, like all these years of all this great work, I just have to uphold it. But this is going to clash a lot because, one, the way we do communications changing, like I said, with earned media starting to have a really big rise in this industry. And I think that's going to be another contentious point that we have to get to eventually and to see how can we really intermingle this earned media world and the old advertising world together a little bit more seamlessly. But then on the other end, when it comes to audiences, the audience that you are used to talking to, their kids are impacted by a lot of these so-called like underrepresented groups and the culture they foster.

17:22Valiant Freeman: I'll tell you a really interesting story. I think recently I just went to Cannes, France for Young Lions. I was really thankful to go with my amazing creative partner, June Hernandez. And we come from very similar cultural, socioeconomic type of backgrounds. And the one thing we were over there, just even when I got to go to even to like after the festival, I got to go to Paris and Tebes and things of that nature. and even if you just talking to a lot of young people this one night in antiques i got to go to this place called the blue lady and i got to meet a lot of the young kids that work on the boats and stuff like that and my french is um not not the not the best but it's solid but you got your way through okay yeah i got my way through but i got to meet a lot of these young kids working on the boats and stuff and we had like a long conversation at this place called the blue lady and it was amazing because we were all throwing out different references and they were surprised i knew a lot about like these french directors but then also too they're using slang that i mean we i grew up with that's popular because of it now but even to some of their fashion senses like take a lot from american culture and in particular black and brown american culture so for me you have to think about a lot of these lexi brands the usual consumer they're usually talking about thinking about they those kids they have kids now and even their kids have kids and those kids are really rooted in this smorgasbord this truly melting pot of the internet and a lot of times people don't talk about it but it is there but a key algorithm if you want to think about the other internet is really seen to do this this essence of black and brown culture being a real footprint in a lot of things in global culture popular culture so that was really fascinating to see when I was over in France and seeing how the culture I come from and the culture June is from as well really does have is the blueprint for a lot of things so of course that's going to make these Lexi brands question a little bit more about yeah who what is their audience but once again it goes back to once you have that question you see it are you strong enough and willing enough to listen about what it takes to not just retain them, but how can we give them access to something more than just a product?

19:49Valiant Freeman: And I think that's where brands too need to shift as well in terms of this idea of like, I didn't need multiplicity in new audiences.

19:56Diana Marszalek: It sounds like an amazing experience. And it's amazing when you travel, you see how big the world is and how small it is right yeah these things um now your path to the industry wasn't necessarily a traditional one right yeah you're an organization can you tell us about it looks like you got your something through the growth initiative can you tell us yeah i don't know

20:18Valiant Freeman: what that was no no i'm very happy to tell you about growth um yeah i'm really proud to be a hundred roses alum uh and shout out to kenny backer i think i know i know i would not be talking with you today if it wasn't for Kenny and a lot of the other great mentors that I've had there. And who is Kenny?

20:37Diana Marszalek: Can you tell us for those of us?

20:39Valiant Freeman: Yeah, Kenny Dacker is the founder and leader of 100 Roses. And 100 Roses is a program to get more underrepresented people into the industry of communications. And that was where I got my official true start to communications. He was the first one to really give me a chance to join this, like the class that I joined. And I feel like that class that I was a part of, we really all kind of came in with the same type of gusto a little bit. Like we were just really excited to be a part of something that was around us our whole lives, but we also felt the ties changing a little bit. And we wanted to be a part of that because I feel majority of that class and I like said this is um shout out to Kenny's leadership it's because we were told right away that like what we do and what we say in the room matters like no matter our position like he always encourages us to speak out when it was necessary and always make sure not just that we understand the creative account strategy side of a business but i actually understand that this is a business and what does that look like for our generation and someone who looks like us when we um come into those rooms um and sometimes that and this was something really cool i remember he told me just in my interview he said never he's like you gotta stop thinking of yourself it's like the minority and that's like a sense of weakness and stuff like that it's not it's a it's a sign of strength and the bigger you see that the more you can bring other people along and I think Kenny is a testament and embodies that a lot and like I said I'm beyond grateful to him and all the great mentors I have because yeah I would not be a young change maker if it wasn't for him and the opportunity he gave me to be a part of that amazing 100 Roses class so I'm very proud to be a growth alumni so yeah absolutely and now you're you're a mentor right and yeah yeah I've had the chance to be a mentor for the past what three three to four summers.

22:49Valiant Freeman: So I'm happy to get back and I've had a lot of great mentees. Definitely. We've had a lot of great deep discussions and they love to call me coach B. Yeah. It's going back to like my sports days. Sometimes the coach comes out of me, but yeah, I love giving back to a hundred roses and yeah, I just think they're a really well needed organization in today's world because I still think, I know things are getting a little bit better, but I do think in terms of access, especially when it comes to, in particular, underrepresented women, I still think we still need to talk a little bit more about what that looks like in terms of making sure they get into the door, but also, too, they're retained.

23:38Valiant Freeman: and they actually, we lay a foundation for them to keep growing. So that's just something I want to be a part of. But all I started with, Under Roses, my whole journey.

23:49Diana Marszalek: Well, what do you think is the impediment or is there an impediment to doing that? Is it getting people in the door, getting them to stay? And is there a reason why these particularly underrepresented women would not stay in the industry? I mean, what do you see that?

24:03Valiant Freeman: Yeah, no, I think it's a good question. To me, how we can get people to, underrepresented people, not to just come into the industry, but stay. I think we really, it boils down to the most human thing possible. And I think we've been missing this. And I kind of noticed this at Cannes a little bit. That this business is about people. And I think, and even from a creative standpoint, but just overall, it's about how are we getting people to care about something at the end of the day. But first, we have to care about the people. who do the shop, not just the consumers who buy stuff. Right now, there's a heavy emphasis on like, oh, which monoculture, which niche community is big now and all that stuff.

24:47Valiant Freeman: I get that and I understand that and it's super important. But at the same time, I think because things are moving so fast and I think the speed at which we're moving and growing so much from an earned capacity, but then from a communications field is also causing a lot of anxiety on not just the agencies, but also to clients as well. And therefore, that does have an impact on the amount of people we're hiring, the type of people we're hiring, and things of that nature. Because if you are in a very fast-paced, anxious, inducing environment, you're not going to be thinking about, oh, I want someone a little bit different.

25:24Valiant Freeman: No, you're going to be thinking, how can I just plug and play someone really quick? You're not trying to always train someone. And I think we need to take a moment and step back and be like, no, we actually need more different thinking people, not just on the creative side, which I do think everyone always leans towards that in terms of putting different types of underrepresented people, not just from a risk perspective, onto a team. but really it needs to start showing up more on a strategic side who are the strategists that we're connecting brands to input on our teams especially from an account side a client experience perspective and even media relations perspective like how can we start training people from untraditional backgrounds in particular women underrepresented women from untraditional backgrounds who are really into pop culture who also are the leading voice of pop culture in general right now.

26:20Valiant Freeman: I think women have overwhelmingly impact on society right now from a pop culture lens. If you look from sports to fashion, I do think it's being really underutilized. And if you look online, a lot of the major social creators, even from the big ones to the small ones, who are the ones leading the front is usually women and women from underrepresented backgrounds. So I think we need to start thinking about how can we get some of those people in the room because and not let our anxiety-inducing environment impact that too much and then to retain them goes back to what i've seen earlier we have to show these people that do we actually care about them and their futures and i think that's been missing a lot and that's one thing where i feel like it's sometimes really hard for me to always be like take compliments and sometimes even like when i got this word it It was a little tough for me to sit with and be like, oh, do I kind of deserve this and stuff?

27:16But because I feel like there's still a lot of work to do, especially on the front I was just talking about.

27:24Valiant Freeman: But in particular, to retain people, especially from these underrepresented backgrounds, we have to really show them they care and care about their futures. Because I think that's the biggest reason why I'm still here at Weber. I had a great mentor, Angela Mears. Sadly, she passed away. but she her and a whole bunch of other people show me that they cared right away they care about my future they gave me opportunities to grow they pushed me like I was talking to clients three weeks into my job like there's amazing I was on Super Bowl briefs right away if they I told them my goals and they was like these are your goals this is what you need to do and they were they really pushed me and they really gave me opportunities to grow but also too they gave me opportunities to grow not just with my internal teams at Weber but also from a client perspective as well and we need to make sure we're doing the same thing for these underrepresented women especially these underrepresented women that we can potentially get from untraditional backgrounds I think we need to really just show that we care about them not just their career but them as people and what they really want to do in this industry and how they can shape it for the better.

28:29Diana Marszalek: Amazing all right you are doing an amazing job for multi from a multiple of animals.

28:35Valiant Freeman: Sorry.

28:36Diana Marszalek: And no, I think it's great. And we are looking forward to seeing you and hearing more from you at our Global Summit, which is in Chicago on... I'm very excited. In a week. So we will see each other in person then and talk more about your good work. And congratulations. I appreciate you being on the podcast.

28:54Valiant Freeman: Thanks so much. Thanks for being so sweet too. You're amazing.

29:04Diana Marszalek: you've been listening to the provoke podcast brought to you by provoke media and produced by the international broadcast specialist marketers