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Natalie Kent (she/her) is a champion of creators and innovators of the world, building connections between creativity and sustainability.
Kent leads creative teams as the design director of Focus Lab, a global branding agency based in the U.S. She is the founder of Zero Waste OKC, a grassroots organization which advocates for sustainability in the South. She is passionate about science, creativity, and advocating for a more equitable world. Kent has led the design development for successful national and global brands, and has been recognized as one of the Top 10 Creatives in Oklahoma and 100 Amazing Women in Oklahoma City.
I grew up in a very wealthy community north of Houston. It was a community that was also majority white, heterosexual, and Christian. For the most part, everyone looked like you, talked like you, and thought like you. My friends and I called it “the bubble” because even though most of us hadn’t lived in many other places, we knew it was so sheltered from reality. I remember peers getting brand new Mercedes and Hummers for their 16th birthday. My only interaction with police was petting the horses of the local mounted officers. The public schools were so well-funded they were more popular than the private schools. Nobody would bat an eye when a Lamborghini or Rolls Royce drove down the street. The high school graduation rate was almost 100% and the poverty rate was less than 3%. When I left, it became immediately clear to me that my perspective, experiences, and assumptions were completely out of touch and I began the work to understand a very important word–privilege.
Normal is the expected. It is the ordinary. It is what you are used to–keyword “you.”
