Latina Ad Exec Daisy Expósito-Ulla Talks Building a Business

Daisy Expósito-Ulla shares how she started and grew her advertising business.

Editor’s note: This is part two of a two part profile of Daisy Expósito-Ulla entitled:  Latina Business Leader Spotlight on Ad Exec Daisy Expósito-Ulla  Daisy shared her backstory, family history and how she became hooked on media and advertising.

LBT: How did you start your business?

After having worked with a dedicated team of professionals who helped me build what was, by all metrics, the largest U.S. Hispanic agency to this day, I was as a crossroad of sorts.

I had done it. I had helped build a multi-cultural powerhouse. Yet I was still young and energetic. It was 2005.

Some of my former colleagues―among them, Gloria Constanza and Fernando Fernández, founded their own agency, CMS Partners, and they wanted me to join them.

We’ve always been like a family―close, supportive, collectively committed. My husband was in the film business but quite close to advertising and we looked at this new challenge together, and it took us almost no time to decide: we acquired a major stake and collectively chose to humbly leverage whatever reputation may have existed by calling the agency d expósito & Partners, LLC.

Briefly after that, we began to expound a new vision for today’s multicultural and Hispanic-based advertising, a forward-thinking vision of America’s plurality that should be proprietary, of course, and that goes way beyond being a moniker to describe d expósito & Partners as The New American Agency™.

Started business in the middle of an economic recession

We started our business in the middle of a scary and paralyzing economic recession and here we are, twelve years later, helping clients navigate the waters of today’s New America. It was quite a challenge to evolve from being a successful, stand-alone unit within the Y&R/WPP global conglomerate to becoming an independent, woman-owned specialized shop!

We service clients directly as well as via joint structures with other ad agencies.

We have the good fortune of including services to AARP, McDonald’s, the U.S. Army, the Port Authority of NY & NJ, among others and has been lucky to service the U.S. Census on two different occasions which has brought us intimately alone to the new demographics that have re-shaped America .

What makes us unique, in my view, is a superior knowledge of the culture: what makes Hispanics tick, how can a brand reach and penetrate their hearts and minds, how do you deal with them beyond the numbers on the page.

Knowing which commonalities align our consumers with the rest of America is of utmost importance. Knowing what makes them a bit different is what closes the deal!

LBT: Daisy please, share your experience and thoughts on business financing.

I’ve had some very influential and referential figures to learn from, both in a macro and a micro level.

Prudence was inherent in my dad’s lot, for example, and daringness was a constant in the hyperactive, post MadMen ad industry world that I happened to be in, prior to the mega acquisitions that gave life to the global conglomerates such as the Y&R purchase by WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell.

You learn by observing. In our case, we’re a small independent agency and we’ve always placed a lot of importance on honesty and reputation. We have basically self-financed our growth―with prudence as a constant―and, contrary to most expectations, in a nearly debt-free way. A good reputation is currency, though.

Next page- Factors and the people who most influenced Daisy’s business growth, Work-Life Balance and A Bit of Advice 

LBT: Daisy with respect to business-growth, please tell us about the factors and the people who most influenced the growth of your business…

One major factor, of course, is timing. Being at the confluence of this New America.

Even if there may exist a trend for consolidation, the strengths of an independent are many. We leverage those strengths.

Then, there’s the team. I couldn’t be here if it weren’t for them: Gloria Constanza is the single, most capable shaper of the Hispanic media landscape. Fernando Fernández and Louis Maldonado are seasoned account leaders.

John Ross is a Chief Financial Officer who had lived in both worlds having developed his chops at Young & Rubicam and Bravo. And recently-joined partners, such as Paco Olavarrieta, who is a world-class creative. This is a visionary group of people―hard-working, consistent and resilient. It is easy for Jorge and for me, no matter how large the challenges, when you know that the commitment is solid.

I mean both commitment to the goals of the agency and to the goals of the clients who’ve given us their trust. And then, of course, there’s the next-generation component that makes our group strong. The young among us are the fuel that takes us to the stars.

LBT: Daisy please share how you balance the work-life challenges…what have been the rewards.

I think I can describe myself as the kind of workaholic who sees her work as an extension of her life. That’s at the core of our drive―both Jorge’s and mine.

The rewards have been plenty―both professionally and emotionally. And many of them come from feeling and behaving as part of the community we serve.

Giving back to our Hispanic segment by way of helping give them a voice, by understanding some inherent social obligations, by celebrating the cultural contributions that can only come from diversity―in a way, by respecting those who justify what we do.

Commitment

We project this commitment through the work of many specific organizations―both Latino and non-Latino―in which we participate: 4A’s, AEF, AHAA, Spanish Repertory Theatre, just to mention a few. It’s quite a long list and mentoring, of course, is part of a mission that’s never finished for me.

My father was always socially concerned.

Helping others was not a charity thing for him but part of the moral obligation to show solidarity. I’ve been lucky, which probably means I have to give more. I have a son who graduated with honors from NYU, is working on his MFA from Columbia and is already a writer at 28.

My husband and I are into our fourth decade of a successful collaborative marriage. But I’ve also seen pain in life and in people, like with my father’s Alzheimer’s and his sudden disconnection to the world around him.

I’ve seen it in the quick passing of my in-laws and other friends, and relatives. Supporting good causes, helping people in need and mentoring young talent from a professional perspective are the kind of rewards that give reason to the journey.

LBT: Daisy what advice would you have for other Latinos who might want to start a business? Any favorite saying?

Dare. ¡Atrévanse! Yes, you can.

There’ll be countless obstacles but there’ll always be solutions. If you fall down once, get up twice. If I could turn back the clock knowing what I now know of course there are things that I’ll do differently but I would never doubt the motivations that moved me or the energy that ignited the materialization of the dream.

Inform yourself well. Don’t be afraid to ask. Arm yourself with optimism and a great sense of humor.

Don’t panic―you are Hispanic! 

Related articles:

Part 1: Latina Business Leader Spotlight on Ad Exec Daisy Expósito-Ulla

A Latina’s Start-up and Business Execution

Latina Entrepreneur on Business Growth and Work-Life Balance

Latina Entrepreneur Turns a Crisis Into a New Career Catalyst