More exposure brings more opportunities for exploration. This became evident to Qori Broaster, KLN ‘15, when she decided to attend Temple University and join the Department of Advertising at Klein College of Media and Communication. Here, she found the space to combine her love of art with her developing appreciation for business. Now, she is a partner at The Soze Agency and owns a freelance graphic design company Hello Qori, working to foster community through her professional endeavors and help others reach their goals.

A New York City native, Broaster participated in the Harlem Educational Activities Fund program in her youth. The program provides enrichment opportunities for middle and high school students to become engaged and eventually attend high-ranking higher education institutions. Broaster recalls visiting Temple multiple times before deciding to attend, and always had an appreciation for the school’s diversity and vibrant atmosphere. After weighing her options of art school against a traditional four-year university, she chose the flexibility of the latter. Entering Klein as an advertising student was all the confirmation she needed to know that she made the right choice.

“Once I was in the program I loved advertising and I loved the fact that I was able to apply the art to business or marketing,” she says. “There [were] so many different aspects to it that I was able to learn outside of technical skills.”

Klein proved to provide Broaster with a strengthened foundation in art and business. Her research and copywriting skills made her internships more manageable and gave her the necessary experience to pinpoint her interests.

Along the way, Klein was also pivotal in Broaster’s formation of long-lasting friendships. She was one of the students who helped establish Temple Wide Agency (TWA), an organization that was meant to give students of color at Klein space to discuss the advertising industry and practice their craft. TWA’s clients were organizations around campus, and its members often developed their own work.

The members of TWA also created a group chat to share their triumphs and setbacks, and always provided one other with advice. The overwhelming support in the group chat has carried into the present as the group chat is still active, with the Temple alumni still excited to talk about all things advertising. 

Xavier Green, KLN ‘14, is a copywriter at Peloton Interactive and a founder of TWA. He recognizes that the group chat has retained its value as the alumni have progressed into their careers because they often find that they are still some of the only people of color in their professional spaces. Learning of Qori’s successes has only added inspiration to Green and others’ motivation, making the group an extension of the microenvironment they all created at Temple.

“It’s good to see how she’s grown from starting off in advertising and doing graphic design to becoming this big force within her agency and it all kind of exists within the group,” Green says.

In 2017, Broaster landed a position at The Soze Agency, a worker-owned creative firm based in Brooklyn that believes in values-driven product development and campaigns. While there, she has served as the lead creative of projects for clients including the Museum of Broken Windows, Eighteen x 18 and The Museum of Drug Policy.

But Broaster’s work does not stop at The Soze Agency. The mission of Hello Qori is to assist Black businesses in their marketing and her illustrations center around Black women, popular culture and streetwear. Her freelance work has been featured in digital publications such as BET, HypeBae and OkayPlayer, allowing her to dig deeper into her graphic design and digital art talents. 

Brea Govan, KLN ‘15/CLA ‘15, is a community organizer who also majored in advertising and worked with Broaster through TWA. Throughout their friendship, she has noticed how much Broaster has grown as a professional creative.

“Oh she’s definitely going far,” Govan says. “She is expanding in her creative space, just looking at how she’s rebranding herself as of recently and just growing in terms of her creativity, her style and art that she’s able to create on a personal, [entrepreneurial] level.”

Similarly, Jordan Cathleen, KLN ‘15, has not hesitated to uplift Broaster’s work. The two have followed similar paths; Cathleen, who was a strategic communication major, is the founder of Dawn Public Relations, a public relations company that serves Black-owned and women-owned businesses. The two have been inspired by one another’s work, and Cathleen looks forward to furthering her friendship and her professional relationship with Broaster.

“I’m incredibly excited to see what’s next,” Cathleen says. “I envision national campaigns for her, I imagine her even making her way into the influencer space if she wanted to and kind of positioning herself as a subject matter expert and sharing her skills and her expertise with other people and teaching in that way.”

Balancing all of her passions requires plenty of dedication, but Broaster says that she can do it because “When you want something, you find a way.” She is excited for her future with The Soze Agency and for the direction that she wants to take her freelance business.

“I just recently got into realizing that I don’t need to do everything myself so I was looking at hiring and bringing people on to do this work,” she says. “Especially with the intention that I have behind it, I have no interest in that being a sole venture. I want my community to help me help my community.”