Shavone Charles

Shavone Charles is a woman of many talents with an insatiable drive for artistic expression and zealousness to break the mold. Whether it’s creating her own job title at multi-billion dollar companies like Twitter and Instagram, or paving a lane for fellow creative women who refuse to be fenced into one box, Charles is a great example of how the underdog can become the most valuable player. Charles is currently using her expertise as the Head of Diversity & Inclusion Communications at TikTok.

Fresh out of undergrad at the University of California Merced, she took on a full-time gig at Twitter where she not only spearheaded the company’s global music and culture communications out of their San Francisco headquarters, but became the first-ever African American woman to be hired onto their public relations team. Charles also helped found Blackbird, Twitter’s first-ever employee resource group for African American employees. Then Charles left to lead all of Instagram’s music and youth culture communications out of the Facebook office in Los Angeles.

Charles has collaborated with some of music’s biggest names for high impact, out-of-the-box social strategy campaigns including Drake, Paul McCartney, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Janet Jackson, Prince, Adele, Kendrick Lamar, Missy Elliott, Britney Spears, Garth Brooks and more. Along with being a highly sought after music PR and marketing maven who is adamant on breaking barriers for women in the tech and entertainment industry, the Trinidadian creative is also a skilled poet, songwriter, and flautist. Along with continuing her personal creative projects, Charles aspires to construct a platform for women of color across industries. She launched Magic in Her Melanin – a community organization and creative collective that focuses on elevating the stories of women of color and bridging the gap between creatives of color and the tech industry.

Charles' influence in fashion, tech and music have been profiled in outlets like Hypebeast, Forbes, The Shade Room and EBONY, noting her history-making moves as the first African-American woman to ever be hired onto both Twitter and Instagram’s communications teams, along with being named on Forbes’ 2019 30 Under 30 list and honored in EBONY’s annual Power 100 list as a leading innovator alongside Virgil Abloh.