The power of representation led Omar Johnson to recognize his potential as a marketer in the technology sector.
As AFROTECH™ previously told you, Johnson developed an interest in the field and discovered his passion for marketing. This motivated him to earn an MBA from Emory University in 2004, which paved the way for his career at Nike. He joined the company as an assistant brand manager in 2005 and, within two years, was promoted to content manager for advising and innovation.
During his tenure at Nike, he was inspired by Trevor Edwards, who served as chief marketing officer before advancing to executive vice president of global brand and category management from 2003 to 2013. Edwards later became president of Nike Brand, a role he held until 2018.
“One of my mentors, his name is Trevor Edwards, he was a president at Nike when I met him…Knew every part of the world that mattered when it came to culture and led this beautiful and big magnanimous way,” Johnson said on the “Black Tech Green Money” podcast hosted by Brand Manager Will Lucas. “I don’t see him. I don’t become me… And when I say see him, see him in action in the room with him as the only him in the room. Think about it—Nike 1990s and 2000s at that president level. Is there another US? Jordan was still a line extension. It was a product and they had Black athletes but not peers.”
Seeing in real-time what was possible, Johnson forged his own path, transitioning to Beats by Dr. Dre as its chief marketing officer. He later served as VP of marketing at Apple, an experience that sharpened his understanding of technology. His role at Apple attracted interest from other Fortune 500 companies. While Johnson wasn’t actively seeking a new position, he saw these opportunities as a chance to gain valuable insights—knowledge that would ultimately help him shape his own path.
“Every Fortune 100 company, most of them called me at some point. I did the interviews just for the information. I didn’t really want to take a job. I always had a vision of building something that could democratize what I knew to the masses,” Johnson explained. “I learned about technology from Apple. I learned about it as a function of being on the board of Qualtrics and seeing both Qualtrics and SAP. And the moment I learned about how much I could scale my brain through technology, it was a no-brainer decision for me to go off and build something.”
In 2018, Johnson made his exit and launched ØPUS United, a platform considering culture and designed for executives, strategists, and creatives aiming to build brands at the highest level. In its early days, he described it as an “experiment” that took root as an enterprise and SaaS software. Six years later, Øpus Intelligence launched to market as a generative artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform that combines “time-tested marketing playbooks, with emerging media trends, audience personas, and real-time product sentiment” to launch marketing campaigns, information shared with AFROTECH™ mentions.
“What’s happened with AI and what’s happened with these large language models, it’s just accelerated. I couldn’t find a tech stack to consistently mimic me. Now I’ve got a machine that does it, and it does it in multiple different languages,” Johnson explained on the podcast. “So I’m telling anyone that looks like me that also may not have my education, that may not have the perfect English. These models are a big unlock for them. They’ve been a giant luck for me and I’ve been pretty successful.”
He added, “You can prompt a business plan today, and you can prompt it to be formal. You can prompt it to be super finance. That’s all just a question to ask. So again, as I think about my future and what I’m encouraging every other executive who looks like me or not to do, a lot of it lives in the world of AI. A lot of it lives in products that we’re building so that you can get access to amazing marketing for not tons of cash.”
