The Dithering of a District Diva

In early 2010, I introduced many of you  to “Happy Black Girl Day!”, a holiday created by Brooklyn diva extraordinaire and fellow blogger Sister Toldja.  This once-a-month holiday allows us to take a break from the constant media assault on Black women and to celebrate the sisterhood with showers of positivity.  The way I choose to celebrate HBGD is by highlighting an extraordinary and prototypical Black woman.

August Prototypes: Dia Simms, General Manager of BadBoy marketing firm Blue Flame Agency; Ericka Pittman, VP of Brand Strategies; and Toni Bias, Personal Finance Director to Sean Combs; collectively dubbed (by their sister-friend Dawn Flythe Moore) “The BadGirls of BadBoy Entertainment”

If you’re running an entire sector of the empire of “the hardest working man in entertainment,” you’d better believe you’re working just as hard as he is.

And you’d better be the best at what you do.

It was by no happenstance that Dia Simms became the General Manager and Executive Vice President of Blue Flame Agency, the firm responsible for marketing Diddy’s image.   She says:

I was working in radio for Clear Channel for Sean John and Bad Boy Records were my clients. My key contact at the record label, Mignon Espy, asked me if I would be interested in applying to work for Diddy. The position was Chief of Staff. Mignon said she noticed I sent emails at 3 in the morning and could probably work in the 24-hour environment at Bad Boy.”

She had the Master’s degree, she had the work ethic, but she didn’t quite have the work experience of running a company.  Nevertheless, Diddy was so impressed with her that he asked her to come along as his Executive Assistant.  Not quite the job she was after, but she did it well.

[I] believe in being the best at whatever it is I’m doing. If I’m a waitress, I’m gonna be the best damn waitress I can be. I took the position as an assistant and worked to over-deliver and excel in this position with my eye on moving forward in the organization.

And it paid off. She was eventually made the Chief of Staff and began talking to Diddy about re-launching the image of Ciroc Vodka. With a team of 20-25 people, she became the General Manager of Blue Flame Agency.

Ericka Pittman’s path to VP of Brand Strategies for Blue Flame, was no cake-walk, either.  Her career began 15 years ago and started in the internet world at the women’s website iVillage.com. After being there for four years, Ericka realized that she and her friends, Dia, Toni, Dawn Flythe Moore, and one other friend,  had skills that they could all leverage to create their own company: Madison Marketing, Inc. in the DMV area. Madison Marketing launched in 1998, and the ladies were very successful in planning promotional projects and events, but Ericka realized what her true talent was:

My charge was wrangling different personalities and celebrities for Madison. I soon realized I had a knack for it. I secured a media sponsorship for our company with Honey Magazine for one of our major events.  The magazine had just launched and our event was so successful that the marketing manager took my resume and shopped it around to every major company executive.  As a result, I was offered a sales position with Honey.  I ended up in publishing sales and I worked for the next decade working for companies like Time, Inc., Glamour Magazine, and then Vibe Magazine and then Vibe Vixen.

But Ericka endured some heartbreaking hits in pursuit of her passion:

After running Vibe Vixen for two years, I resigned because the magazine was going defunct. I soon learned that I wanted to pursue a multicultural perspective in sales, so I went to Giant magazine, but again, my position was dissolved while I was there. The magazine has since ceased publishing and currently publishes a website under the same imprint.  But everything happens for a reason, because soon after, an opportunity developed at Blue Flame for me.

She explained why she was able to keep such a positive attitude in the midst of disappointment:

A lot of my career has been Divine. It simply reveals itself. I went to school for corporate communications and it seemed that I was just put into positions  where I could succeed. What I found in my career is that what “you” say is not as important as what “people say about you.” I’ve been blessed with experiences with people that have been wildly successful, so much so, that they speak about me when I’m not around.  So with every disappointment, when one door closes, a window opens. While those these things were discouraging, I’ve learned that there is always something bigger.

Toni Bias also believed that “something bigger” had to be waiting for her, as well. Four years into working for Madison Marketing, she started with Starwood hotels in reservations. Toni worked in every division of the hotel industry and found her niche in revenue and finance. She became well-known for her ability to save money and increase efficiencies and was sent to multiple properties to implement cost-saving measures and help properties show maximum profits.  After 10 years at Starwood, she reached a point where she had achieved a tremendous amount of success, and was interested in a new challenge.

I started to get bored in the hotel industry.  I wanted to do something new and exciting.  So, I started speaking with Dia, since  she always suggested I come on board with Bad Boy.  There was an opening in Sean Combs’ Executive Office as a Personal Finance Director, and I signed on.   So now, my role is to save (Diddy) money — in every aspect of his life: household expenses, family, and travel.  Anywhere I see any opportunity to save money, that is what I do.  I watch every dollar. I micromanage every purchase to ensure that money is not being wasted down to the purchase of gum.   He doesn’t play with his money, and I don’t either.  It was just such a great opportunity for me, and it was exciting, and offered me the challenge I was seeking.

The common thread between these women is that they LOVE what they do with their lives.  It excites them.  Dia explains why she’s so passionate about marketing in a way that makes you wonder how it is possible that you didn’t think to pursue a career in it :

I was a Psychology major in undergrad, and I love the idea of coming up with concepts that move a behavior forward.  I’m always thinking, let’s not just come up with a cool commercial, lets come up with a plan to get people involved.  You start asking: “How do you really help a person make a decision? How do you impact the thought-process in somebody’s mind?”  It’s just such an exciting concept!

But, as Ericka found in the magazine industry, not too many marketing firms were interested in tapping into the mind-frame of the minority consumer:

Once, I met with a major beauty company and they told me that they don’t market their shampoo line to African- American women because we don’t use shampoo as frequently as other ethnicities. It made me feel like we are not a relevant market and our dollar just doesn’t matter. The irony of it all was that I had just washed my hair with their shampoo that morning. It made me realize that I have to be an advocate — a voice for women of color across the country, in some way.

But Ericka channeled that experience to bring Blue Flame to the forefront of multicultural and lifestyle marketing:

As communication is merging, people are not as separate as they used to be, so the way you market to people has to change and Blue Flame is at the forefront of that. It’s not about traditional demographics anymore, it’s more about their lifestyle. We specialize in that. This is an innovative and new way to market to people.

But for women in the misogynistic industry of entertainment, innovating isn’t always easy.  Dia explained how a woman can demand respect while keeping her femininity in tact:

Ericka nicknamed me the  Cupcake Assassin.  I am still my self; I consider myself kindhearted and I  love helping people, and helping other women, but you don’t have to be the stereotypical angry woman in order to succeed, but no one walks over me.  It’s possible to be balanced, feminine, happy, and no-nonsense all at once. It’s critical to continue to self-improve and work to be the best. YoI demand respect through my work and the way I present myself.  You have to ask: “am I wearing the proper clothes, is my posture right, what do I need to do to become the best speaker I can be?”

Also, know your subject.  In my early 20s, I worked with the Department of Defense in a male-dominated industry where my counterparts had been in the defense industry for 20 or 30 years, and I had to know my stuff backwards and forwards. The best protection against passed over for a job is excellence. If you are really excellent, that can’t be ignored. But you can definitely be both:  You can be happy and spread joy and pixie dust and also be taken seriously!

All of these women have a commitment to helping other women succeed by being who they are and finding a career that suits their personality and fulfills their God-given purpose.  They bring in high school girls to tour Blue Flame and introduce them to a future of leadership that could be their own.  Their advice to young women:

You spend so much time working, you might as well match up your natural skill sets and then get paid for it.

Don’t compare yourself to other people, you can’t be that person. You have to identify the things about yourself that are phenomenal and leverage them to be who you are supposed to be; work within the guise of who you are.

It is quite remarkable — but certainly no coincidence — that these childhood friends have gone on to be so amazingly successful.  Ericka explained:

My mom always said, “birds of a feather flock together.”  I’m my own person, but if we didn’t have each other to mirror, we may not be able to grow at the level we are. its motivational. It keeps you present about where you are in your station in life. we didn’t realize with our own group we feel like we’re very different, people say wyou guys are so similar. One of the things that is truly a blessing is that we always put God first. I think we go out of our way to be helpful and it comes back in  such droves it’s unbelievable! It would be impossible if we had to catch up with all the blessings we’ve received, but we definitely try!

On cue, Toni  chimed in:

You have to have a strong support system around you. You have to have people to process your thoughts with, if you’re uncertain about something or questioning something. Being surrounded by positive women helps you to be positive and better.

And Dia summed it up:

That’s why it is so important to surround yourselves with women who are amazing.  Build a strong network of women and work together to build and improve one another. Men have an advantage in this respect, and I want to see that change.  I want to be a part of changing that. As women, we can capitalize off of one another’s experiences. Ladies, all hands in the middle!

That declaration epitomizes the legacy that these women hope to leave:  To empower young women to seek positions of power to change the way women are treated and viewed in entertainment; To fundamentally impact the way ethnic minorities are marketed to; To “do well by doing good.”

What we can learn from Dia, Ericka, and Toni: Work your network! Build yourself a safety net of amazing women and empower each other at every turn; Be a Cupcake Assassin! You can be yourself as a woman and still demand respect; If you are bored, you are in the wrong job; Don’t be discouraged by closed doors, there’s a window opening with “something bigger” just around the corner; Know that you’ll never make up for all the blessings you’ve received, but you’d sure better try.

Passionate, committed, empowering, and empowered. Dia Simms, Ericka Pittman, and Toni Bias are: The Prototypes.

Please go HERE to vote for The Dithering of a District Diva,  finalist in the Best New Blog and Best Personal Blog categories for Black Weblog Awards 2010!

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