28 OCTOBER 9, 2017|^ ADWEEK
ASIA KATE DILLON
ACTORMany actors would be nervous making history by playing TV’s fi rst major nonbinary character—Taylor, the
hedge fund intern on Showtime’s drama Billions—but not Asia Kate Dillon. “It wasn’t daunting. I was just
full of excitement and readiness,” says Dillon, who also identifi es as nonbinary, and uses gender-neutral
pronouns like they and them. “This is something I’ve been working towards my whole life,
so it’s been gratifying.”
Any concerns about whether a testosterone-heavy show like Billions would give the role the appropriate
care were “immediately alleviated” when Dillon, 32, began working with the producers. “It felt like a
collaborative experience from the very beginning, which meant as the season progressed, I felt very
comfortable going to the producers with anything that might have been a concern, and nip it in the bud,”
says Dillon, who also plays white supremacist Brandy on Orange Is the New Black.
On Billions, Dillon relished the opportunity to represent “nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, trans,
gender-fl uid people” for the show’s 5 million weekly viewers. “If
there had been a character like Taylor on television or fi lm when I
was younger, I know how much it would have meant to me,” says
Dillon. “I continue to be grateful and humbled to play a character
that not only means something to me, but to so many other people.”
Next, Dillon, who was promoted to series regular for Season
3, hopes to see nonbinary representation in advertising as well. “If
an ad campaign wants to accurately refl ect the demographics in
America today, you have to have people of all colors, all shapes, all
sizes, all genders, all sexual orientations,” Dillon says, “because it is
the diversity of this country that makes us beautiful.”—J.L.DAV ID LE V Y
EVP, NONLINEAR REVENUE,
FOX NETWORKS GROUPUnder new president of ad revenue Joe Marchese, Fox’s David
Levy has spearheaded some of the company’s biggest ad
innovations, including ditching traditional ads across FX’s digital
and on-demand platforms, which is increasing attention and focus
on brand messaging.
Levy is also overseeing the rollout of Fox’s new six-second ad
format, which debuted during August’s Teen Choice 2017 Awards and
expanded this fall to Fox Sports’ NFL and MLB games.
“As more viewership goes into streaming environments, you have to
have a competitive ad experience to ad-free, while still maintaining our
revenue per hour. The only way to do that is improve our client ROI: how do we get more ROI with less
time?” says Levy, 35, who hopes Fox’s competitors follow his lead. “We want everyone to start selling
‘sixes.’ The way that we all win here is, with more tools, to hit users with the right message at the right
time, and be more effi cient with people’s attention.”—J.L.
APRIL UNDERWOOD
VP OF PRODUCT, SLACKAs vp of product at Slack, April Underwood is the
brain behind some of the tech world’s favorite work-
messaging products.
Since joining the company in 2015 after holding
prominent roles at Twitter and Google, Underwood
has grown Slack’s product manager team from six
to 22 people. Meanwhile, under her tenure, Slack’s
daily active users have increased from 1 million to 6
million. (The company is currently valued at a mind-
blowing $5.1 billion.)
Recently, her team rolled out a product called
shared channels that allows two companies to work
in the same Slack channel together. Agencies, for
example, can work directly with a client within Slack
to share ideas and fi les.
Underwood, 37, is also a board member at Zillow
Group and co-founder of #Angels, a women-owned
investment group that supports startups. Her
advice for fellow female execs: take time to develop
relationships outside of your day job and fi nd a career
that allows you to focus on more than one thing. “We
talk about it as managing your career like a portfolio,
similar to how an investor thinks—they don’t make
just one investment, they invest in many things at any
given time,” she says. —L.J.OLIVIA MANNIX
FOUNDER AND CEO, CANNABRAND
In November 2012, Olivia Mannix, a freshly minted graduate of the
University of Colorado, was just starting her communications career
when Amendment 64 passed, making Colorado the fi rst state to
legalize marijuana. Supporters of the bill saw victory, but Mannix saw
the future. Together with her business partner Jennifer DeFalco, Mannix
started Cannabrand—the country’s fi rst PR and marketing fi rm dedicated
solely to marijuana products. “We ran with the vision,” as she puts it.
Today, 29 states have legalization laws on the books, and an industry that didn’t
exist four years ago notched sales of $7 billion last year. Mannix, 28, has been the voice of that industry,
deftly navigating the still-treacherous regulatory waters to craft the brand images and marketing
messages for more than 100 companies.
“There are so many who believe cannabis is this horrible drug,” she says. “We’ve focused on
education, informing people of the benefi ts of cannabis, and that it’s not a stoner product.”—R.K. DILLON: MATT WINKELMEYER/GETTY IMAGES; MANNIX: CANNABRAND; NEXT PAGE: BENNETT: BOB FAGAN