Ayo Fagbemi and Aaron Skipper met on the Nike account at Wieden+Kennedy. A mutual friend, affectionately known as Toby One Tooth, had told Ayo to look after Aaron when he arrived. They hit it off on day one and talked about starting something together, but it would take a few more years than originally planned.
When they finally launched, things took off quickly, thanks largely to the complementary skills the two partners brought. From the start, Explorers Club was built on a strategist and a designer working on equal footing.
In this episode of Uncut, Ayo explains why the studio is “very against hand-off culture,” the habit of finishing your part and passing it to the next discipline. He also dives into the thinking behind the studio’s “timeless and timely” approach: knowing what a brand stands for at its core, and how people actually encounter it today. Ayo also talks openly about leadership: listening to the quietest voice in the room, being demanding because “we’re doing a serious job, but we’re unserious people,” and learning to let the team get to know him as much as he knows them.
As a strategist, Ayo sees how “community” and “culture” have become overused words, confused with what’s cool and trending, when they’re really the study of human behavior. He also warns against treating social listening as the whole truth: “The Instagram comment isn’t the world.”
Two and a half years in, with a team of 11 and a new studio in Los Angeles, Explorers Club is now, in Ayo’s words, “starting to challenge” the big players. Find out more about how Ayo motivates his team, what he sees happening next in the industry, and where he and Aaron plan to take the studio next.
To see more interviews with leaders from across a range of agencies and to find out how they grow, motivate and innovate their teams, check out The Subthread's Uncut series.
