CEO Sees ‘New Alternative’ for Small Companies Throughout Delight

Just a few weeks in the past, Tanner Graham, co-founder and CEO of artistic model company Common Thought, seen a obvious growth whereas attending a Delight parade in small-town Pennsylvania: Main firms that will usually march, from blue-chip banks to insurance coverage, pharmaceutical corporations and past, have been absent.

^{Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Common Thought. Tanner Graham.}

 ”It was undoubtedly a really totally different tone this 12 months,” Graham tells Entrepreneur. “These Fortune 500 corporations that previously few years have strongly expressed their assist for LGBTQ+ initiatives and confirmed a transparent assist of Delight initiatives have retracted [that support].”

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As a substitute, Graham witnessed small and native companies step in to march and keep the momentum established in years previous.

“It creates an actual, new alternative this 12 months, and doubtless for the following a number of years.”

Because the 2018 founding of their full-service, luxurious magnificence and fashion-focused company, Graham and Common Thought co-founders Ian Schatzberg and Semjon Doenhoff have at all times centered range, fairness and inclusion. The 5 leaders that make up Common Thought’s C-suite all determine as LGBTQ+.

Graham sees massive corporations’ lower in assist for Delight and LGBTQ+ initiatives as an opportunity for small companies to extend their very own efforts.

“There’s an actual alternative to be leaders,” Graham explains, “as a result of as the larger corporations and particularly the publicly traded corporations have needed to flip down the amount [on their LGBTQ+ initiatives], it creates an actual, new alternative this 12 months, and doubtless for the following a number of years to return.”

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Graham calls on small enterprise leaders to concretely and persistently decide to their values.

Common Thought is an authorized member of the Nationwide LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), which incorporates annual membership charges to assist their community of initiatives. The company has additionally made donations to the Transgender Legislation Middle for a number of years and continues to assist LGBTQ+ causes in 2025 by donations to Ali Forney Middle, which gives life-saving companies to LGBTQ+ youths, and SAGE, a nationwide advocacy and companies group that appears out for LGBTQ+ elders.

Graham says leaders shouldn’t solely talk firm values outwardly but additionally present their groups and organizations why it is so necessary to face up for his or her beliefs.

“Variety [brings] the perfect concepts, probably the most forward-thinking concepts.”

Because the Common Thought co-founders first thought-about develop a contemporary advertising and marketing company and supply the perfect service for his or her shoppers, they targeted on hiring folks with skillsets that will complement one another throughout the present and shifting advertising and marketing panorama, Graham says.

“Variety [brings] the perfect concepts, probably the most forward-thinking concepts,” Graham explains. “Finally, as entrepreneurs, our aim is to talk to a various vary of consumers. We did not got down to essentially create an LGBTQ+ C-suite, however on the similar time, it felt like a snowball impact. The folks that we received to know and determined to deliver into the company and elevate into operating their departments occurred to be various in that regard, and it is labored very well for us.”

Common Thought has partnered with celeb manufacturers like Savage X Fenty, Ariana Grande and Swarovski over time.

Along with its C-suite, Common Thought has about 50 workers. The corporate prioritizes hiring “distinctive” thinkers and creators who work exhausting and have a powerful appreciation for tradition and a capability to faucet into present traits and future alternatives, Graham says.

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Common Thought hires additionally will need to have a knack for discovering options — as a result of that is on the coronary heart of the enterprise.

 ”Each consumer involves us as a result of they’ve an issue to unravel,” Graham says, “whether or not they should promote extra merchandise or join with new audiences, so for us, in the beginning, it is about understanding what these issues are and attending to the core of that. And a number of occasions, it isn’t so clear firstly.”

Graham notes that Common Thought would not invoice itself as an promoting company, although relying on a consumer’s wants, promoting may be a part of a “multi-pronged” answer.

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“Our most rewarding tasks generally are the tasks that are available pondering they’re one factor after which find yourself leading to a unique kind of output,” Graham says, “as a result of it implies that we’re not taking these briefs and issues at face worth, however slightly we’re partnering with our shoppers [and] shepherding them into what we consider will create the absolute best consequence.”

“We actually wish to create an atmosphere that empowers folks to really feel secure.”

In a second when sure corporations are being “quieter round what their values are,” Graham and Common Thought see their dedication to LGBTQ+ points and variety at massive as a path ahead — and one that can put together them and their workforce to maintain up with a “quickly” evolving advertising and marketing area and “utterly totally different world” wrought by AI.

“We actually wish to create an atmosphere that empowers folks to really feel secure, [to] really feel like they’ll categorical their beliefs and be who they’re,” Graham says. “We wish to create alternatives for folks to thrive inside these senses of safety.”