Building a Social Justice Focused Business: Neta Collab's Ambar López for Women's History Month
March 31, 2025 | By Rose Charles
Who are Systemic Disruptors?
Systemic disruptors are leaders who challenge and transform unjust systems through creative, community-centered approaches. They combine cultural power with innovative strategies to address root causes, uplift marginalized voices, and create lasting social change. These changemakers don't just work within existing structures—they reimagine and rebuild them to benefit marginalized and historically underrepresented communities.
Introduction
At the intersection of creative marketing and social justice, Ambar Januel López has built a business model that proves mission and business can coexist with integrity. As the founder and CEO of Neta Collab, she has transformed how social justice organizations approach marketing and storytelling, creating pathways for community-led narratives that drive measurable impact.
Systemic Disruptor Feature
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Systemic Disruptor Feature •
Meet Ambar Januel López, Founder and CEO of Neta Collab, and our Women's History Month Systemic Disruptor Feature!
Ambar is a queer Mexican American strategist and creative who founded Neta Collab in 2018 to advance social justice through marketing and creative services. Growing up between rural Vermont and Mexico City as the daughter of an immigrant mother, Ambar witnessed firsthand how systems weren't built for families like hers, inspiring her to question and fight systemic injustices from an early age.
With over twelve years of experience in design and marketing, her leadership has earned recognition as a 2023 Tory Burch Foundation Entrepreneur, Stanford Business Latino Action Network graduate, a 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival Fellow, and 10kSB Goldman Sachs Entrepreneur.
In this interview, Ambar shares insights on building a mission-driven business and navigating challenges as a Latina and LGBTQ+ entrepreneur.
About Neta Collab
Founded in 2018, Neta is a Latina and LGBTQ-owned creative agency serving over 125 organizations across the social justice landscape. The remote-first team of twenty combines cultural storytelling with data-driven strategies to build community power and create measurable impact for nonprofit and social enterprise partners.
Our conversation:
Can you introduce your role in the organization?
As Founder and CEO of Neta Collab, I lead our strategic vision while ensuring we remain true to our values as systemic disruptors. I work alongside our incredible team of creative strategists to develop culturally competent marketing campaigns that advance social justice and build community power.
Fun fact: When Neta started, I did all of our creative and strategic marketing work, from our illustrations to running ads. Now, my role primarily involves guiding our business growth and vision, fostering partnerships with mission-aligned organizations, and ensuring our work consistently amplifies the voices of communities fighting for justice.
What is your organization's mission in three words?
Impact
Collaboration
Creativity
Why did you become dedicated to working towards this mission?
Living between rural Vermont and Mexico, our family often struggled to make ends meet. Yet I grew up being taught that creativity and art are our power and right and that being informed about real history (not necessarily what we're taught in school) is key to being thoughtful humans.
My mother is an immigrant who impressively fought oppressive systems to ensure we had access to art and could pursue our dreams. I started working alongside her at random jobs from the age of nine, which opened my eyes to how systems of oppression impact families like mine. These early experiences ignited my questioning of systemic structures and sparked my dedication to fighting injustices that harm marginalized communities.
After spending a decade in design and marketing, including launching my first consulting firm for startups in Los Angeles, I realized I wanted to dedicate my skills to social justice work.
After working in-house at justice-focused organizations in NYC, I founded Neta in 2018 to create a space where dedicated professionals with social justice, electoral, creative, and marketing expertise could come together to provide organizations with the capacity and resources they need to create lasting change.
What is the biggest challenge facing your social issues areas and specifically your work?
One of our biggest challenges is navigating the political landscape where social justice work is being targeted. With the return of the current administration and increased attacks on DEI and equity initiatives, organizations doing this critical work face both funding challenges and direct political opposition.
For Neta specifically, we must continuously adapt our strategies to help partners effectively communicate in this charged environment while staying true to their missions. We're focused on building resilience into both our business model and our partners' communications approaches to weather these storms while continuing to advance justice.
In your experience, what role does creative storytelling play in dismantling oppressive narratives and systems?
Creative storytelling is transformative because it can shift not just what people think, but how they think. Oppressive systems maintain their power through dominant narratives that frame marginalized communities as problems rather than as sources of wisdom and solutions. Through culturally competent storytelling, we help reframe narratives to center community expertise, emphasize structural causes rather than individual blame, and illuminate pathways to collective action.
When done authentically, creative storytelling doesn't just raise awareness—it builds cultural power by transforming how issues are understood and discussed. It makes visible the systems that many don't see and creates emotional connections that motivate action. Most importantly, it helps communities recognize their own power and envision the world they're fighting to create. Each campaign we develop aims to tell stories that not only challenge harmful narratives but replace them with liberatory ones rooted in community experiences.
How does technology and/or AI impact your work?
Technology, particularly AI, presents both challenges and opportunities for our work. As a creative marketing agency, we're seeing how AI tools could potentially commoditize day-to-day services, which pushes us to focus more on our cultural competency and data-driven approaches—something AI alone cannot replicate.
We're taking a thoughtful approach by integrating ethical AI into our workflows to increase data and research usage where appropriate while ensuring human creativity, cultural context, and lived experience remain central. We're also developing frameworks for our partners that allow them to leverage new technologies while maintaining authentic community voice and cultural storytelling.
We continue to prioritize supporting creatives and artists and hope that our partners continue to prioritize supporting their communities as well.
As one of the few Latina and LGBTQ+-owned creative agencies, what unique challenges have you faced, and how have they shaped Neta’s growth?
The marketing industry, like most sectors, wasn't designed with leaders like me in mind. According to industry data, less than 1% of advertising agencies in North America are owned by women (Adweek), with even fewer owned by Latinas despite approximately 400 Latina-owned businesses being launched daily across all sectors (NWBC). Similarly, LGBTQ-owned agencies represent an extremely small percentage of the industry (Clutch), creating multiple barriers for someone with my identity.
A particularly frustrating challenge has been watching white-led (especially male-run) firms regularly receive higher budgets for projects where they lack cultural competency, while our team—built with diversity at its core—has had to prove our expertise repeatedly despite delivering more authentic work. The industry's homogeneity is striking: over 80% of C-suite executives in agencies are white (Ad Age), creating systemic barriers for agencies like ours that bring diverse perspectives and lived experiences to the table.
These challenges have directly shaped Neta's growth strategy and operational model. We've built a remote-first culture that prioritizes flexibility and accessibility, creating opportunities for talented people regardless of location or traditional background. We've developed pricing models that recognize different organizational capacities while ensuring our own sustainability. And we've created internal systems that distribute power and decision-making, rejecting traditional hierarchical models that often replicate the same oppressive structures we're working to dismantle.
Perhaps most importantly, these challenges have strengthened my commitment to creating pathways for others. As we've grown from two to twenty team members, I've focused on building leadership capacity across our organization, ensuring more BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals have opportunities to lead and shape our industry. By creating a model that values lived experience alongside professional expertise, we're not just building an agency—we're changing what leadership in marketing can look like.
How has your non-traditional career path influenced your approach to building a marketing agency centered on social justice?
My career path has been anything but conventional. Starting in service jobs at a young age taught me to adapt quickly and connect with people from all walks of life. Not having a traditional high school experience pushed me to be self-directed and resourceful – qualities that now define Neta's approach to problem-solving. When I decided to leave art school, it wasn't because I didn't value creative education, but because I recognized that formal institutions weren't the only path to building expertise.
This non-traditional journey taught me that art and creativity are forms of power, especially for those from marginalized communities. My first consulting firm for startups in Los Angeles was an incredible learning laboratory – I made mistakes, celebrated wins, and discovered how to build systems that could scale. Each role after that, from in-house positions at justice-focused organizations to consulting work, added new perspectives on how marketing could either reinforce or challenge existing power structures.
Being an art school dropout who's dedicated my career to continuous learning gave me a deep appreciation for different forms of expertise. At Neta, we value lived experience alongside formal education, recognizing that some of the most innovative solutions come from people who've navigated challenges firsthand. This influences everything from our hiring practices to how we develop campaigns – we're constantly asking whose voices are centered and whose knowledge is valued.
What accomplishment at Neta are you most proud of, and how does it reflect Neta's mission of building community power?
I'm most proud of our growth from two to twenty team members while maintaining our core values and remote-first culture. Building a team of diverse, talented individuals who bring both professional expertise and lived experience to our work has amplified our impact exponentially. The organizational culture we've built serves as proof that the values we advocate externally can be successfully implemented internally.
I’m so proud to work alongside this powerful team. This community is the reason behind my long days and maintaining our vision even with the regular stress of running a business.
What advice would you give to other women, especially women of color and LGBTQ+ individuals, who want to create businesses that drive social change?
Start with your values, then build systems that operationalize them. Your unique perspective is your greatest asset—don't try to conform to traditional business models that weren't designed for you. Instead, create structures that reflect your vision of how work should be done.
Build financial sustainability into your model from the beginning. Social change work requires long-term commitment, and you can't sustain that work if your business isn't financially viable. Develop pricing structures that allow you to serve your mission while supporting your team and yourself.
Surround yourself with people who share your values but bring different skills and perspectives. No one builds a successful business alone, and diversity of thought strengthens your work. Invest in cultivating leadership across your organization rather than centralizing power.
Create accountability structures beyond profit metrics. Being mission-driven doesn't exempt you from responsibility to the communities you serve. Build feedback loops that ensure your work continually reflects community needs and priorities.
Finally, remember that your business itself can be a form of systemic disruption. By creating models that distribute resources equitably, center well-being, and deliver excellent work without exploiting people, you're proving that another way of doing business is possible—and that's a powerful contribution to social change.
Meet the Author
Rose Charles | Marketing Strategist at Neta Collab
Rose Charles is a creative communications professional based in Miramar, FL, who is passionate about amplifying voices for social justice and equity. She has five years of experience in communications, marketing, and non-profit. Rose's work is deeply personal, driven by a desire to uplift marginalized communities. Her passion for storytelling, crafting multicultural and campaign strategies for BIPOC communities, and writing is a testament to her commitment. As an immigrant, Rose's work is a reflection of her own journey, particularly in her efforts to bridge the gap between the Latinx and Haitian communities. Her advocacy for climate justice further underscores her dedication to marginalized communities.
