‘No one thinks three black women run a talent agency’

Christina Okorocha has been running a growing digital talent and entertainment agency for seven years and her clients include Disney, Warner Brothers, Arsenal Football Club and Netflix. But when she and her two co-founders walk into a pitch meeting, “we’re overlooked”, the 30-year-old says.
“As three black women, we are regularly asked, ‘Are you here to help out?’ They never think we’re top level, just a part of the team. Our clients are Fortune 500 companies, but no one thinks three black women run an agency. We have all the accolades, but if you look different, it’s still hard.”
Despite the challenges, Vamp, the agency Okorocha founded in 2017 with Ruby Aryiku and Rumbi Mupindu, her friends from Coventry University, is making waves. The firm, which is headquartered in Kings Cross, central London, works with major media brands to help them maximise their reach by experimenting with different content and events, with clients including top black UK content creators such as Steff London, otherwise known as the rapper Stefflon Don (who has four million Instagram followers), and the hip hop duo Krept and Konan.
Inspiration to launch Vamp came when the trio were on work placements from university. Okorocha and Aryiku were working in the same building, with roles at Google and Universal Pictures respectively. “We’d meet up and talk about our experiences: how as the only young black girls in the office, we were constantly being tapped for Gen Z, youth culture stuff. The brands would come up with a campaign, and ask me, ‘What do you think?’ We were constantly suggesting different black influencers for campaigns. Then one day I sent Ruby an email saying, ‘Let’s start a business.’”
Vamp —the name was inspired by the trio’s mutual love for the VampTastic lipstick shade made by Mac — was the result. In its earliest days, the firm focused on managing black influencers. “But every time a lead came in, the businesses didn’t know how to use our clients,” Okorocha explained. “We soon realised we’d be better off working with brands to help them reach the black community.”
The agency’s start-up days involved classic fake-it-til-you-make-it bluster. “I saw an ad for [the movie] Girls Trip on a bus,” Okorocha recalled. “It had four leading lady black women, so I cold-called someone at Universal, and said, ‘Girls Trip is coming out! We’re an agency with loads of influencer contacts: we can work with you!’”
At that time, the agency was more of a concept than reality, “but we quickly created our first pitch. Universal loved it and asked us to help with their PR on the film.” The trio invited 100 black influencers to a screening — among them were the singer-songwriter, Ella Eyre, the actresses Michaela Coel and Jada Pinkett Smith, and the rapper Nadia Rose — and it was “massive”, said Okorocha. “Universal said we had doubled the box office takings, because all the black girls wanted to watch the movie during opening weekend.”
That put paid to Vamp’s earlier critics. “People asked, ‘Why are you focusing on just the black community? You’re serving 0.3 per cent of culture, how are you going to make any money?’ But black culture is influential and people are interested in it from around the world.”
After the success with Universal, Vamp “marched into Disney, which had [2018 Marvel movie] Black Panther coming out, and then Netflix, Amazon Prime, Sony … soon all the big studios were working with us on their black titles, and then more broadly. Vamp changed the game. Back then, it was just celebrities [invited to premieres]; we started sending influencers to the [red] carpets, and their content went viral, and now everyone’s doing it.”
Vamp, whose turnover stands about £1.5 million, grew to 12 staff last year, but had to make half redundant at the start of 2024 as the economic downturn hit the entertainment industry. “It was the worst moment,” said Okorocha. “We’ve bootstrapped the business so far, and went on a hiring spree as we had so many campaigns inbound, but as brands cut their budgets, we had to react. Now we are scaling again and looking for investment too.”
Vamp is also striking increasingly lucrative deals for its influencers, recently securing one a £100,000 TV presenting role, and securing a string of £60,000 deals with various social media stars in return for posts about fitness and fashion brands.
It’s not all glamorous movie premieres or celebrity-filled football stadia (Vamp works with Arsenal on its local community engagement). Okorocha remembers inviting a well-known celebrity to join a Vamp-run film screening. “She said she’d love to, but she was babysitting her friend’s dog. So that’s how we came to be running up and down the penthouse of the Charlotte Street hotel, whilst everyone else was enjoying the film downstairs, trying to feed a sausage dog that we were all scared of, just trying to keep clients and a celebrity happy!”
Okorocha is passionate about promoting other black women in business, previously founding the Twice As Good network (so named because it’s “a common phrase said to black women because the playing field isn’t equal”) for ambitious black professionals and, for the past six years, running Vamp Power Brunch.
“It’s a space where people drop their barriers, are vulnerable and share their stories, like reading out a ‘letter to my younger self’. A lot of businesses have been created in that room,” she said. “Sometimes it’s really hard to be vulnerable as black women; there’s a lot of challenges, and we’re highly independent so it’s tough to let our guard down. But when we come together, we can flourish.”
The Times Enterprise Network is hosting a panel discussion at the UK Black Business Show tomorrow