building ballet's brand

Houston Ballet recruits ex-Netflix exec to serve as first-ever CMO

Adama Sall starts as the Houston Ballet's first-ever chief marketing officer on January 26, 2026.

Photo by Grace Hwang

The Houston Ballet announced it has hired Adama Sall as the organization’s first-ever chief marketing officer.

Sall, who starts her tenure with the Ballet on January 26, will oversee all marketing and brand strategy as part of the executive leadership team. Sall brings more than 20 years of experience building global, culturally influential brands to this newly created role.

“Having worked with the best and the brightest, Adama is passionate about what Houston Ballet is set to accomplish, including building a brand that feels essential, modern, and deeply integrated into people’s lives,” executive director Sonja Kostich said in a statement. “We are focused on aligning how we show up across ticketing, digital platforms, public relations, events, education, and community engagement — so that every touchpoint tells a cohesive, compelling story. This is not about following traditional ballet marketing playbooks, this is a rare opportunity to shape the identity of an already stable, well-resourced organization and bring fresh creative energy to an institution poised for reinvention. We are thrilled to have her joining us at this pivotal moment for the Company’s growth.”

Sall is excited for what comes next.

“Sonja's vision for elevating Houston Ballet into a global cultural force resonates,” Sall tells CultureMap. “It reflects the kind of bold ambition I grew up with in advertising: building iconic brands, reshaping categories and setting aspirations that inspire not just an entire organization, but the culture at large.”

Throughout her career, Sall has worked with both top creative agencies and held in-house leadership roles at some of the most innovative, culture-shaping companies in the country. She is known for collaborating with deeply creative teams and partners who are ready to think differently, and for translating big, imaginative ideas into scalable strategies. She has partnered with leading agencies including Mekanism, Ogilvy & Mather, BBDO, McCann, TBWA\Chiat\Day, and R/GA, and has led brand strategy for some of the world’s most recognized companies, including Disney, Coca-Cola, HBO, Gap, Peloton, Starbucks, Ben & Jerry’s, Samsung, Jeep, Nasdaq, HP, GE Appliances, and UPS.

During her time as director of global brand strategy at Netflix, she helped create brands that maintained consistency in different mediums worldwide. That worked is credited with helping the streaming platform drive "global cultural conversation," according to press materials.

“Arts marketing is similar to my work in entertainment at Netflix,” she said, explaining how marketing an organization like the Ballet can be unique. “We weren't just selling a product or a service. The marketing was centered on building meaning, emotion and cultural value. In the arts, brand doesn't just support the mission, it is the mission made visible. At its best, arts marketing invites people into something that matters, amplifying artistic intent.”

As chief marketing officer, Adama will develop integrated marketing campaigns that elevate Houston Ballet locally, nationally, and globally. She will oversee digital, social, content creation, public relations, and brand storytelling, all designed to raise Houston Ballet's profile and make a compelling cultural case for ballet overall.

“I'm eager to dive in,” Sall said. “One of my favorite parts of brand strategy is listening and learning, then translating those insights into a fresh perspective that inspires people to see ballet in a new light. Houston Ballet is a powerhouse, and I can't wait for more people to discover it.”

Sall holds a degree in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University and is a longtime mentor, educator, and advocate for diversity in the creative industries.

In a press release announcing her appointment the Ballet noted that Sall’s hiring reflects a continued evolution toward a more integrated, future-facing approach to the Ballet’s brand and audience engagement.

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coming attractions

Houston museum devotes 2027 exhibit to Black magazine photographers

Color photo by LaMonte McLemore of a Black woman in a bright coral suit set against dark brown wood and a black iron fence

image courtesy Govinda Gallery. © LaMonte McLemore Archive

LaMonte McLemore's Fashion Model inkjet print is included in the MFAH's Bold and Brilliant: The Rise of Black American Magazines, 1930 - 1970 exhibit.

Printed magazines may not hold a place of prominence in today’s online world, but these periodicals were the lifeblood for news for more than a century. Life, Look and Colliers were household names that featured the work of Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, and Ray Bradbury (among others).

In the Black community, Ebony, Essence, and Jet, employed writers such as Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. And one of their defining features was photography.

Now, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is celebrating the photojournalism and artistry of the Black photographers who traveled the world to capture images for these publications – and many others. Bold and Brilliant: The Rise of Black American Magazines, 1930 - 1970 is the first dedicated to the photographers who worked for the more than 300 general-interest magazines that were published across the country for the Black community, spanning the eras of the Great Migration, Civil Rights activism, and the Black Is Beautiful movement.

On view from February 28 to May 31, 2027, Bold and Brilliant will present more than 100 images by 50 photographers, shown alongside the vintage spreads in which they originally appeared. Because nearly all of these images were produced for publication in magazines — the primary way readers of this era encountered photography — most of these photographs are being displayed for the first time in the exhibition.

It will be organized by editorial section, with themes such as fashion and beauty, food and home, entertaining, sports, music, nightclubs, professions, education, and activities, mirroring how viewers and readers would’ve encountered them on the printed page. The result is an exhibit that explores the broad and dynamic Black cultural life in the mid-century.

“This groundbreaking exhibition builds on archival recovery efforts to locate the work of hundreds of photographers, most of them overlooked until now,” said Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH. “The scholarship behind Bold and Brilliant demonstrates how visual culture reflects but also influences identity, self-representation and community allegiances — something that is at the heart of magazines and museums alike.”

Among those included in the exhibit are Nat Brown, a largely self-taught photographer who shot for Ebony, Hue, and Jet, ; Stephen Deutsch, a Hungarian immigrant to the United States who took photos for Duke, Ebony, and Tan Confessions; and Gordon Parks, a photographer for Circuit’s Smart Woman, Ebony, Essence, Jet, and Newspic who said he “chose my camera as a weapon against all the things I dislike about America — poverty, racism, discrimination,” and who was also a prominent writer and director.

Accompanying the exhibit is a fully illustrated catalogue that includes biographies of the featured photographers and essays by the exhibit’s co-curators, Lisa Volpe, curator of photography at the MFAH; Anjuli Lebowitz, the Judy Glickman Lauder Curator of Photography at the Portland Museum of Art; and Brian Piper, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Exhibitgoers and readers will also find essays on jazz by Jason Moran, writings about beauty by Tina Beyoncé Knowles, Doug Glanville’s observations on sports, and more.

The museum has partnered with the University of Houston to produce and host an archival database of the newly rediscovered publications. When complete, it’s anticipated to include more than 2,500 entries.

More information, including tickets, is available on the MFAH website.

$Color photo by \u200bLaMonte McLemore of a Black woman in a bright coral suit set against dark brown wood and a black iron fence$

LaMonte McLemore's Fashion Model inkjet print is included in the MFAH's Bold and Brilliant: The Rise of Black American Magazines, 1930 - 1970 exhibit.

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