Studio

One principal. Close to the work.

Influential Lifestyle Media Group is a marketing and brand-management firm working with clients from small businesses and mission-led nonprofits to corporations. Programs are tailor-made — built around goals, budget, timing, products, and services. Based in Los Angeles. Active across New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.

You work with the principal, not through layers.

Founder

Vern Harris

Founder, President & CEO

Vern Harris is the Founder, President and CEO of Influential Lifestyle Media Group. His work spans corporate marketing, branding and image consultation, large-scale event planning, promotion, and audience-focused communications. His experience crosses entertainment, automotive, online marketing, and service businesses. Before founding his own ventures, Vern served as Business Machines Lead at Staples, overseeing the department across multiple stores in his district, with earlier experience at Acer and Datavision NYC — a foundation in retail operations, sales, and management before stepping into entrepreneurship. Earlier in his career, he owned AB Tuning, an automotive customization and accessories business north of Manhattan, and served as a national distributor for Benevento Automotive, contributing to product and design concepts.

'Founder-led' isn't just how ILMG is run — it's how Vern builds. His own product work was selected for Apple's Entrepreneur Camp, placing him in the top 1% of founders in the program.

ILMG's corporate profile documents experience involving Universal Music Group, PepsiCo, Def Jam Recordings, Jive Records, Atlantic Records, and Bacardi as client experience.

Historical experience is presented at category level and does not imply current affiliation or endorsement.

Sectors

Entertainment
Fashion
Beauty
Technology
Nonprofits & mission-led organizations
Automotive
Sport
Consumer
Online marketing & services

Apple Entrepreneur Camp

Selected participant

Cross-category practice

Entertainment, automotive, online marketing, and service businesses

The making of a point of view

Built through culture, material and movement.

Vern Harris's creative perspective was shaped long before ILMG had a name — from fashion and nightlife in New York, to custom interiors in the Bronx, Art Deco and brand building in Miami, and product creation in Los Angeles.

Before Vern directed brands, he learned to read materials, environments, people, and culture.

01
Where he grew up
New York — Instinct
Vern grew up in New York City, introduced to fashion early by his parents. In a city where presentation carries meaning, style read as identity rather than decoration — a first lesson in how people signal who they are before they speak.
Fashion taught taste and self-expression.
02
Custom-car culture, late 1990s onward
The Bronx — Material
Deep in New York's late-1990s custom-car era, he opened an automotive-accessory shop in the Bronx in the early 2000s, selling and installing body-modification kits and developing custom interiors. Working in velvet, leather, suede, and microfiber taught texture, proportion, finish, and the discipline of building something specific to one owner. New York nightlife through the 2000s sharpened the other half of it: how presentation and self-expression actually read in a room.
Customization taught material intelligence, personalization, and finish.
03
December 2012
Miami — Color
He moved to Miami in December 2012 and started a brand-management firm. The city widened the palette — Art Deco geometry, color used with confidence, hospitality as a craft, and business conducted through relationships that outlast a single project.
Miami taught color, environment, hospitality, and relationships.

Before founding ILMG, Vern deliberately pursued roles that exposed him to corporate operations, technology, sales leadership, and premium client service. Lead roles at Service Merchandise and Staples, followed by experience at Essential Computers Technology and Datavision, taught him how organizations operate — how teams, systems, products, and service create consistency and trust.

2018 — present

Building the proof.

Beginning in 2018, Vern made a deliberate decision: instead of continuing to explain ideas that others could not yet fully see, he would build the proof himself.

While continuing to accept select brand, nonprofit, and cultural engagements through ILMG, he focused on developing original ventures — first Legends of Creativity and later VEU. These platforms allowed him to connect fashion, technology, storytelling, community, and digital experience without waiting for conventional categories to catch up.

The shift was not a hiatus from client work. It was a move from presenting possibilities to creating tangible evidence of what those possibilities could become.

That founder experience now gives ILMG a sharper perspective. The agency understands both sides of the process: how to advise organizations strategically and what it takes to turn an original idea into a brand, product, platform, and experience.

Cultural memory

An era that cannot be duplicated.

The places, people, and businesses that shaped Vern's point of view.

Enter the story

Working together

Start with a conversation, not a questionnaire.

Tell Vern what you're building. If it's a fit, you'll know quickly.