Ukonwa Ojo left her position as senior global director at Unilever to shake things up at CoverGirl. For the the first time in her 20-year career, she will be working with a black creative director as she takes up the challenge of revamping the cosmetics company. 

“To have an African American creative director walk in the room and present this to me, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, this is amazing,’ ’’ said Ojo, who is Nigerian-American. “I think we can see the power of the work because of that.”

Her most recent campaign will challenge conventional beauty standards by featuring an array of different women from various demographics. The campaign will include Issa Rae of HBO’s Insecure, motorcycle racer Shelina Moreda, celebrity chef Ayesha Curry and dietitian Maye Musk.

According to the U.S. Labor Department, 7 percent of the 67,000 people working as advertising and promotion managers in the United States in 2016 were African American, less than 5 percent were Hispanic, and about 1 percent were of Asian descent. 

These dismal numbers can explain why many companies have failed in attracting these demographics as of late. Recently, Kellogg's had to apologize for a marketing ploy that depicted the only brown corn pop as a janitor on its cereal boxes. In another case from earlier this month, Dove – a Unilever company – came under fire for an ad showing a black model transform into a white woman implying black people are dirty and unclean. The ad harkened back to racist and stereotypical images from the '20s. 

Since joining, Ojo has orchestrated the change of CoverGirl's old tagline “Easy, Breezy, Beautiful” to “I Am What I Makeup.” The team from the ad agency Droga5 had two black creative directors, Shannon Washington and Ray Smiling, featured on the project.

Ojo believes that this is a necessity for the success of targeted ads “if you have the right people around the table.”