Thai Randolph worked with one of the world’s largest creators. Now, she’s building the infrastructure to help more creators scale.
Randolph’s career began in advertising at digital agencies. As a group director in social and emerging media at VML/Y&R, she learned that traditional brand building would be disrupted. Working at Sony, and then Meta, showed her how technology could be either a disruptor or a propellant for “how stories are told and brands are built,” she said at the 2026 AFROTECH™ Conference.
When she stepped into the CEO role at Hartbeat, the global multi-platform entertainment company Kevin Hart founded, she recognized creators’ growing influence.
“I got to see the infrastructure required to scale a creative business, but also just how powerful creators are. … Increasingly creators who’ve not come through traditional Hollywood are growing faster and with so much scale. … It’s disrupting how brand building is happening. It’s thinking about how technology transforms communities and brands and their value and the right ways to partner with creators in the face of all of that,” Randolph told AFROTECH™.
She highlighted the rise of middle-class creators and creator-entrepreneurs thinking beyond content creation to build personal brands and develop intellectual property (IP).
“For so long, ownership and generational value had to do with investing in real estate, investing in the stock market. What is the everyday IP opportunities for the folks who are sitting in this room,” she told the audience.
Randolph spoke Tuesday, Nov. 3, in the session “Your IP Is The New Is The New Real Estate” at the AFROTECH™ Conference, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary in Houston. The conference runs through Friday, Nov. 6, and tickets are still available for the rest of the week.
Nile & Co.
Randolph exited her role at Hartbeat Ventures in 2023, after helping to raise more than $100 million in venture capital. Drawing on her experience and work with one of the world’s largest creators, who “had aspirations of a whole enterprise,” she recognized that creators had different visions for how they wanted to participate in building businesses, she told AFROTECH™. Those insights led to Nile & Co., a brand and IP platform for IP, media, and technology businesses with three strategies.
Through its build strategy, the company co-founds businesses alongside creators and athletes as equity partners, while also scaling companies in high-growth consumer and creator sectors. Its second strategy focuses on working with IP owners, creators, and corporations as an operating and commercialization partner. These partnerships include BuzzFeed’s Cocoa Butter, Pero Like, and A*Pop brands, which target Black, Latino, and Asian American communities, respectively. Nile & Co. is also a brand operator for Rock the Bells, where Randolph serves on the board of directors.
“Working with different creators through Hartbeat let me realize that while they’re the Kevins or the Alix Earles of the world who like want to have a full business around them, not everybody wants to really run the whole business. That’s why we talk about the spectrum of participation where there’s endorsement. Look, there are fees and there could be performance bonuses based on the outcome of a project for a creator. Equity, where there’s a real stake in whatever it is that you’re creating. So they want to own a part of the IP or part of the business or what you’re building,” Randolph told AFROTECH™.
“Then there’s equity. Enterprise folks like LL Cool J, who’s one of our partners at Rock The Bells, where he’s building out an entire company around him,” Randolph added. “As opposed to a one-size-fits-all, it’s really important to find the right kind of alignment there because it’s a lot of hard work to build a full business, and not everybody is gonna want to do that.”
Lastly, Nile & Co. will acquire brands with loyal followings that resonate with culture, modernize their revenue models, and expand their distribution, according to a press release. Its first two acquisitions are As/Is, a former body positivity platform being relaunched as a lifestyle platform for high-performing women, including athletes, founders, and executives; and Goodful, a wellness-to-wealth platform for women featuring creator-led products, content, and experience.
Randolph confirmed both ventures will relaunch in Q1 2027. The acquisitions reflect Nile & Co.’s initial focus on women, who drive consumer purchasing decisions, according to a press release shared with AFROTECH™.
“You’ll see there are just women who are deeply attuned to this audience and who have real value to provide. I’m not someone interested in how many followers you have as much as how attuned you are to the mission and what types of outcomes you can drive … Can you drive a conversion or an action? Even in a micro-community, that’s hugely important. Those are the types of folks who we’re thinking about, and I’m like really delighted to have an opportunity to work with them,” Randolph explained. “When you look at sort of women creators, and Black women creators specifically, you often don’t see the same types of like commercial investment and success. I have a vested interest in being like, ‘How do we drive more examples because they have so much influence.'”
