Michelle Ngome had successful careers in the music and finance industries before she decided to pursue a career in digital marketing.

“In 2004, when the Super Bowl came to Houston, a friend was working with a label, and he was like, ‘Hey, the Super Bowl's coming to town. Can you help me out?’ [I said,] ‘Yeah, sure,’ not knowing I was stumbling into a pseudo career-slash-hustle. But that was where my introduction to marketing began,” explains Michelle.

Shortly after, Michelle began her deep dive into the marketing world. “I remember reading marketing books, and I'm like, ‘This makes sense, but this makes no sense,’” she laughs.

Michelle stumbled across Full Sail’s Digital Marketing master’s program and realized it was a much better fit for her new career path than the MBA she was pursuing at the time.

“At the time, [Full Sail taught me] all of the digital skills,” Michelle shares. “The SEO, the importance of brand, the psychology of color…how you're creating your website, the design of your website.”

Today, Michelle is the founder of Line 25 Consulting and the African-American Marketing Association and has helped notable companies like AT&T and the YMCA develop inclusive marketing strategies that better represent their workplace and values.

“A lot of these companies, they may be diverse when it comes to the makeup of their employees, but not necessarily with their advertising and marketing,” she says.

“What I realized is a lot of people in organizations like frameworks,” Michelle continues. “I created a framework because I'm one of those people, I just can't tell you something's wrong without providing a solution.”

The framework Michelle found success with contains five points: content and communication, candidates, company culture, consumers, and community engagement. She works through each point with the client, ensuring that all aspects of the company acknowledge and integrate diversity, from social media ads to who’s sitting in the boardroom.

“If you have Black and brown people that come into your organization and they don't feel like they belong, they're going to leave because there's a lack of engagement,” she explains.

As of late, Michelle has been focusing on running and growing the African-American Marketing Association. The association had its second Marketing for the Culture Summit this summer and has been working on developing brand awareness and engagement. It’s a lot of work, but that doesn’t seem to bother Michelle.

“I am very fortunate. I love what I do. I am truly blessed and privileged to [have] founded and be operating the African-American Marketing Association. Does it have its growing pains? Absolutely. I think any time you step into leadership, there's growing pains.”