Tamara Francois and Adolfo Vasquez are co-founders of The XP Agency. Vasquez serves as president while Francois is CEO; Francois is also the founder of The Vibe Outside—a community of Black and brown outdoor enthusiasts—and founder of business coaching company The Full Time Hustler.
How they got their start:
Vasquez: "Tamara was in radio and marketing. I worked in radio, distribution, and, eventually, marketing. The music industry is about taking advantage of buzz, releasing a record, and promoting it. Experiential was a natural progression for us: It was already in our DNA."Francois: "We worked our way through different agencies. Fast-forward to a project we both took on by a former agency to run a campaign. Because they took on a competing client, we were working on our own. We had to build everything ourselves: production, creative, staffing—you name it. It hit us: We were running an agency. So once the project wrapped, I looked at him and said, 'Why aren’t we doing this for ourselves?'"
Vasquez: "That decision didn’t come easy for me. We talked to our families and said, 'We don't know what this is going to be, and we want to take a chance.'"
Francois: "I remember you saying yes right away! But just two weeks later, Coca-Cola called with a project. We told them we weren’t freelancing under someone else anymore, that we had our own agency now. And they said, 'We want to work with you guys—it doesn’t matter where you are.' That’s when we knew we were on to something." 
Photo: Courtesy of Tamara Francois and Adolfo Vasquez
What innovation means to them:
Francois: "True innovators are not afraid of risk. They see the upside and all the possibilities more than anything else. A lot of brands are scared of that. If somebody else did it first, it's not innovative. You have to be willing to take a shot."Vasquez: "I tend to run on the side of safety a little bit more than she does. But I do believe in solving problems. To solve people's problems, you have to think outside the box. In that case, innovation is inherently simple. It just has to be executed well and consistently. Sometimes it's how you think about attacking a situation, how you can bring it to life, and how you can present it to people. So innovation can be remixed to some degree. Innovation tied to strong execution, good research, and strategy can go 10 times further than innovation for the sake of shock value or excitement."
Memorable moment:
Francois: “The Park Bench” film for Aflac will always stand out to me. We were in the middle of COVID, and everybody was trying to figure out how to do experiential by doing virtual events and virtual galas. We never believed in that. We didn't think you could take a live experience and put it in a box. We found another way to bring an experience to the screen through entertainment, by producing a short film and putting it where people were spending a lot of their time—on streaming services. In 2020, we didn’t have as many subscriptions as now. We were just starting to untether ourselves from live events into this other digital arena."Vasquez: "The film turned into us watching it at Sundance, which was our first foray into that world. Then it turned into a huge philanthropic project. We started installing benches across the country, coupled with grants to help reduce medical debt. It was going to communities and research teams that needed it. That's probably the best feel-good program we've ever done."
Their biggest hope for the future of experiential:
Francois: "Experiences exist everywhere. A lot of people confine experiential to a live event. We like to break the handcuffs of that and look at it holistically. We think about, 'What is your full experience from beginning to end?' Every day, my friends and I are planning our outfits for the Beyoncé concert. Amazon or Shein could curate a shopping collection or shopping experience and take advantage of that preconcert energy. If somebody did that it would have been really smart."Vasquez: "It’s about the process, not only the day-of experience. It starts with building anticipation, with the way the invite looks. All those things matter. Once you can get into someone’s periphery, it's about touching all the senses. What did it feel like?"
What's next:
Francois: "We’re developing our own immersive experiences and putting on experiential events for consumers. It’s going to be called XPA Play. The first event will be a film-to-score concert series, where an orchestra will play along to a movie as a live soundtrack. The plan is to do the first one in New York in fall 2025. Then, we plan to expand to five markets by 2026 and 16 markets by 2027."Back to the full list
This feature is sponsored by Gladiator Productions, a new kind of production company igniting magic in the arena of live events, entertainment, and experience. We consistently partner with our clients by providing high-touch service through every step of the production process.
