Tony Williams calls from high up in the Peruvian Andes, elevation 11,000-odd feet. He’s high, too, he says, chewing coca leaves, before heading to a spiritual retreat in the Amazon, where he’ll partake in ayahuasca and hapé, psychotropics used in indigenous rituals.
So, would this be something of a way-out-there getaway after having opened a marketing firm 30 years ago this year?
“No, not at all,” says the freshly retired president and CEO of Infinity Marketing, which he founded in a house on Pettigru Street in Greenville. Rather, he says of his entrepreneurial career, “That’s been a wonderful revelation and a wonderful healing experience, and it was a beautiful ride.”
Williams grew up in Overbrook, back before the neighborhood near downtown got trendy. He was one of seven siblings who lived in a five-room house with two bedrooms and one bathroom.
He didn’t go to college. In the early 1980s, he landed his first real job as a bellhop at the then brand-new Hyatt Regency hotel on North Main Street.
Ultimately, he wound up working in radio sales at WFBC-FM. Several years later, he started a side hustle, doing what he was doing at the station: handling media buys for other clients.
“I hated advertising agencies, and I hated the way they operated and I hated how they were gatekeepers,” he says during a Saturday morning phone call in early November from Cusco, the ancient Incan capital.
So he started his own company. But, he says, “I had no clue what an agency was.”
Charter Communications was among Infinity’s first clients. Today, telecommunications and health care comprise Infinity’s core verticals, he says. Other clients include Comcast, which owns NBC Universal; SSM Health, a not-for-profit health care system based in St. Louis; and HBO and Starz. There are others including banks and builders.
“I built very strong relationships. I’m a relationship builder,” Williams says of the company whose 75-some employees generate between $35 million and $50 million in annual revenue.
On its 30th year, Williams, who says he still owns 100% of the company, handed the role of president to Bo Rogers, who has been with the firm for 12 years.
Like Williams, Rogers had no experience in marketing before he came on board. But he says the two clicked.
“We just, really from the beginning, had a really good relationship and comfort level,” Rogers says. “He gave me a shot, gave me an opportunity, and I took it.”
Rogers is carrying on Infinity’s playfulness, with kickball games and after-work socials, among the variety of other internal good times.
“The culture was a big part of what drew me to the company — of fun and collaboration, excitement, a lot of change — fast-paced and a family atmosphere,” Rogers says.
Looking forward, Rogers says Infinity will “double down on relationships,” while evolving in real time to meet the fast pace of the marketing marketplace.
“There’s new things to do,” he says, “new opportunities to explore, so we just embrace innovation and evolution.”
Infinity Marketing Timeline
December 1993: Tony Williams establishes Infinity Marketing.
1996: Infinity becomes the agency of record for Charter Communications, its first large client, and partners with Tim Morrison, at the time Charter’s vice president of marketing and programming for the Southeastern U.S.
2004: Morrison joins Infinity as vice president of business development.
2004: Comcast becomes an Infinity client.
2012: Infinity expands, relocating from 870 Cleveland St. to 874 S. Pleasantburg Drive.
2011: Bo Rogers joins Infinity Marketing as a media specialist and member of the agency’s radio DJ influencer team.
2011-12: Clayton Homes becomes a key client.
2017: SSM Health, another large health care company, joins Infinity’s client roster.
2023: Williams announces he is stepping aside and taps Bo Rogers as Infinity Marketing’s new president.
Source: Infinity Marketing
