Shavone Charles

Nov 19, 2021 ... Shavone Charles Joins TikTok as Its First Head of Diversity and Inclusion Communications · She had been director of communications and creative partnerships at ...

TikTok has tapped Shavone Charles to lead communications around the social platform’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. Charles joins TikTok in the newly formed role after serving as the director of communications and creative partnerships at VSCO, where she launched the #BlackJoyMatters campaign. Prior to joining VSCO, she oversaw global music and youth culture communications at Instagram and music and culture communications at Twitter, two positions that she created at both companies.

Shavone Charles has been paving the way for women of color in the creative industry ever since she landed her dream role as the Head of Global Music and Youth Culture Communications at Instagram in 2015. Prior to her time at Instagram, Charles was a key contributor to Twitter‘s marketing and communications team, and helped grow the platform’s official @TwitterMusic account.

“In tech, particularly at the places I’ve worked, Black creators are the pulse of the entire platform—what we do, what we don’t do, what we say, and how we spend,” Shavone Charles says. Charles sits on the other side of the screen in an LA Kings jersey, effervescent in the morning in her sun-speckled home in Los Angeles. The musician, tech executive, entrepreneur and activist has a warm and engaging countenance—like an old friend you haven’t seen in a while—but she’s talking about the serious subject of being a Black creator in the technology space.

Instagram's first music and youth culture hire in 2015, Shavone Charles created Instagram's first-ever Black History Month program and a #BlackGirlMagic ...