Kelly converses with Arturo Nuñez, a seasoned executive, entrepreneur, and brand strategist with decades of experience helping build some of the world’s most influential brands, including Apple, Nike, PepsiCo, the NBA, and Nubank. He is the founder and CEO of AIE Creative, where he advises companies on leadership, branding, and building cultures that become competitive advantages. He serves on the boards of The Estée Lauder Companies and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. Previously, he was Chief Marketing Officer at Nubank and Head of Marketing for Latin America at Apple. Earlier in his career, he held senior leadership positions at Nike and the NBA. He has a new book, written with Cecil R. Cross II called “The Culture Compass: Navigate the Corporate World Without Losing Yourself.”

You write in the book that the first time you saw a black guy in a suit was when you were 16. 

“I was 16 years old. I was actually dragged to some random meeting with a friend of mine that was part of his organization. I walked into a room, I saw a guy named Miguel Cardona, had one of those weird Latin names. He was an Afro-Puerto Rican guy in a business suit, speaking articulately to what looked like powerful people. And I was like, whatever that guy does, I want to do that.’ I wanted to do that, because I’d never seen that before. That’s why I’m a big believer in the see it to be it, right? And it literally changed my life. That was a life-changing moment for me.” 

There’s a theme in the book about your ability to read rooms and people and I think this is a talent you share with comedians, who also feel a bit on the outside looking in. 

“It’s something that I’ve honed over time too. But yes, I walked in with innate awareness, right? And and by the way, I never put these two things together, but I talk about it in the book too. You know, I grew up in Harlem, you know, northern Manhattan. And the taxi cabs in Manhattan at the time, the map in the back of the cab ended at 96th Street. I lived on 145th Street. There was a lot more Manhattan that wasn’t on the cab map. And the reason it wasn’t on the cab map is because that was considered the Land of the Misfit Toys. And what was the Misfit Toys? Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Afro-Americans, et cetera, et cetera. And so, when you talk about awareness, and I never linked these two until right now, when you talk about awareness, I had to know how to talk to the Dominican bodega guy differently than the Halal Cart guy, differently than the Cuban guy who’s the salsa guy that leads the band. So, culture was inherent to me immediately. Like, okay, this guy’s different than this people. If I’m walking into the Jamaican spot, I don’t want to approach that the way I approached the bodega guy. So, it taught me early to read the environments, which then I translated into reading the room in corporate America.” 

You talk about the fine line between showing up as your true self and knowing when you have to button it up. But you refused to play golf. 

“I try to show up as myself, man. But listen, again; that was honed over time. You know, we’re taught when we’re young as kids to fit in. The only thing you want to do is fit in. You don’t want to stand out like a sore thumb. So of course, I joined a new environment that I didn’t know what was going on. I wanted to fit in, of course. But I learned pretty early on that what made me valuable in the environment was my secret sauce, what I brought to the game that was different than other people, right? And so, I tried to bring that whenever I could. The golf thing was, you know, I’ll be very candid, we’re talking about 40 years ago. Golf wasn’t a very diverse game. It’s just getting diverse today. I know a lot of people that play golf that are of all colors, shades, and ethnicities, et cetera. But back then it wasn’t that way. And I said, this environment is really challenging for me Monday through Friday. The last thing that I want to do is spend my Saturday and Sunday also code switching and also trying to fit in and also trying to prove my worth and also trying to verify that I belong there. So, I decided I didn’t want to do that. You know, now, would I make that same decision today? Probably not.” 

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