 Hi y'all. Oh, we got extra water. Nice. All right. Goddess, I'm so excited that you're here today because we're talking about brands being bold and you are one of the boldest people I know, particularly in your career trajectory over the last like two to three years. So before we get into brands, I want to talk about being bold in your career and maybe for starters, you can just let us know how did you originally get into advertising and social media? What attracted you to that kind of work out of all the things you could have done? Oh my goodness. I like to say I tripped and fell and landed in it. I think it's interesting. I'm still kind of of that old school class where when I was in school, social media didn't exist, telling my age a little bit, hopefully I still look good, y'all. But I think it was really interesting. I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to work for Essence Magazine. I always knew that what was important to me, yeah, I wanted to be Susan Taylor. I thought that that would be my path and what I loved the most was writing and coming out of school, again, being of that kind of strange group that came out of school in the middle of a recession, we all kind of had to be really creative and figure out what the heck are we going to do now. And I was like, oh, I know how to do this right. And then that can take you places. So I started as a marketing coordinator at a startup and then that kind of lended itself to who's the youngest person in the office? Turn that Facebook thing on. Turn that Twitter thing on. I think a few of us probably ended up in social media just because of that. And that's really kind of how I got there. But what kept my interest was the idea that I could connect with people from all over the world. That was so exhilarating to me and it still is to this day. So I'm happy that I tripped and landed here. So fast forward 2016, which was a really pivotal year for you. You're working as a social strategist for VML, YNR, the agency. And you sent an email to your manager that literally set off a chain of events that brought you to this chair. So can you tell me a bit about what was happening at that time and what that email was? It's so crazy just to be here today and think about that day three years ago. Being in advertising, what I loved about it is this idea that you get to connect with people, right? You get to represent people and culture. And for me, being in a very, I'll just say it, white male dominated industry at the time VML itself was very not as diverse as I know they would want to be. I just didn't feel seen. And that particular day I actually sent an email to the head of our New York office. It was the day, I think it was the end of the week that culminated the week that Philando Castile was murdered, Alton Sterling was murdered. And there had just been a string of murders and police brutality. That just wasn't sitting right with me. It felt like my community as a black woman, I was under attack. And to go into an advertising agency where our job is to know how to connect with human beings, what makes them tick, what is important to them. It just felt like nobody was seeing me. And I kind of just had a moment I said, I'm going to send this email. If I get fired, you know, at least this is what was important to me. And I sent that to the head of our New York, our New York office, which is Mike Wenty and Chris Verst at the time. And I heard later that it made it all the way up to our CEO and HR and there's a little bit of panic in there. But, you know, I asked, could we just talk about this? And how could we call ourselves, you know, representing culture and connecting with human beings? And we can't even talk about the things that our people are going through. And I got a great response. And we had a meeting just to talk about what was happening and what we felt we could do about it. Yeah. And something that's been a theme that I think has come up in a couple of sessions today is how difficult it can be to speak up. You know, there's a fear of retaliation. You mentioned it. What gave you the courage to send a note like that? Did you have any reason to believe it would turn out well? You know, and we were literally just talking about this backstage. But I think, you know, there's a little bit of privilege in saying, well, I'm going to send it. And if I get fired, you know, I have somebody to catch me. My amazing mom is here. My husband's great. You know, I think there's a privilege in saying, I can make this decision and be OK with whatever happens. So I recognize that. But I also think that there's something to this idea of having to follow and be true to who you really are. And I was really just at this point where if I couldn't be at a place where I worked that saw me fully, then what I was doing was kind of a lie, right? Yeah. How am I really connecting with people around the world? And I'm not even been seen at in my office where we create these campaigns and these these ways to talk to different people. So it just felt like to me it was almost a turning point for am I really going to do this? Is this what we say we're really doing or not? And it was just important to me. I just felt like I think if things had gone differently, I probably would have pivoted to something else where I felt like I could be free in who I am, be seen, and then also fight for what I knew was right. And at that point, they created a new role for you, the director of cultural resonance. And you had this interesting hybrid job where you were like half HR, half creative, sitting on pitches. And you became famous within the advertising community for a PowerPoint presentation, a PowerPoint presentation. So tell us about that. Well, I'm not actually that good at designing, though. But so that first iteration didn't look that great. But you know what, I'm still shocked by it. I felt like I always say I had the advertising year of hardy beat, right? It was like a Tiffany Haddish year. I just never expected this kind of reaction. But to me, it all goes back to my love, which my love is, how do we strategically connect with human beings around the world? And as a director of social strategy, that was what I was tasked to do. But I felt that I had to still rely on the skill and the mission of doing so. And so for me, I think also marrying that with my passion of my identity of being a Black woman and wanting to really try and elevate the voices of marginalized groups, I particularly for years was so interested in Black Twitter because, one, I felt very much a part of it and identified with it. But it was a really great example of showing how a historically marginalized group could really find a democratized space like Twitter and rise to the top, push culture forward. I mean push activism forward in ways that we didn't need to wait to be hired by a CNN or wait to get this journalism job. We had a microphone and a podium in Twitter and not just for activism, but for joy and celebration. And I think that was such a beautiful representation of what happens when you understand culture, when you understand technology, and also when it's important to you to connect with these groups. So I just kind of said, you know what? I think people should know this. I had a 13 person team I was a part of at VMLINR and I said, I'm going to do this presentation. I had a lot of gifts in it. It was funny. But then our CMO responded to the meeting invite. And I was like, oh, let me try and pause this up a little bit. There were some good jokes in there. I kept a few. And so I think that was what was important to me is that it was something I believed in, something I identified with. But it still lent back to my mission is that the more we can better understand different groups, different cultures, especially married with where we are right now in terms of what we have access to, what the world has access to at their fingertips, platforms like Twitter, how are we going to evolve where we are? So I think that was kind of what happened. I didn't expect it to catch on wildfire. And I'm grateful that it did. It's brought me a ton of opportunity. I'm still just as passionate about that presentation. And speaking of the head of Twitter, am I right, was in the audience at one point. You got to ask to do this presentation over and over again. You're not kidding about having a year like Cardi B. People were inviting you. Twitter ended up recruiting you. So how hard was it to make the decision to switch from an agency to the tech world? What made you make that switch? You know, I think for me, and we talked about just kind of my hybrid role, and it was a hybrid role, for me the hybrid was not something that I necessarily thought was going to happen because my background is not in HR. I don't do any recruitment. My background was straight strategy. And so I think when I kind of petitioned for the role, I knew that I needed a partner in HR because it's just important to see the work that's going out the door. You want to make sure that there's a team that's also inclusive. So I needed a partner in HR, and it was kind of like, why don't you try it? And so I was kind of doing these dual roles. But I think for me, what was kind of the enticing thing about the Twitter opportunity was that I get a chance to be at a platform that's agnostic. It's our job to serve the public discourse. It's our job to be this platform for all the voices that I talked about before. I think in the ad world, sometimes you can be a little bit compartmentalized. So let's say, I think Pepsi's in the audience, right? Pepsi and Gatorade was one of VML, Y&R's clients. Shout out to you guys, wherever you are. Had some good times, but I could never talk to Coke. You know what I mean? And so now it's one of those things where this mission that I believe in, when it comes to understanding intersectionality, when it comes to understanding people at their core, I can spread this mission across industries, across verticals, and that to me was freeing. And then also this role at Twitter is actually not in HR at all. It is purely strategy and experiential as we connect with people in real life, which we'll probably talk about a little later. So that was kind of what was core to my passion. And I think that we have some amazing people in our HR team at Twitter that do work on that piece of it, which is so important and integral. But it's not what I'm tasked with. I can really focus particularly on the strategic development of understanding and listening and amplifying culture and voices. And I want to ask you more about that. So what exactly is your mission at Twitter? What are you trying to do there? And this is a brand new role, too, I should say, right? Has it existed before? Yeah, I can get those brand new roles. Yeah, I can do that now. I think the mission for me is the same mission that I had as that 16-year-old who thought I was going to be Susan Taylor. It's this idea of connecting with marginalized voices around the world and amplifying them, aligning with them, and elevating those voices to be heard. And that is what has always attracted me to Twitter as a user for a decade, is this idea that there's this space where everybody has the same amount of characters. Everybody can be heard. And I think what I hope to do is really I lead the charge that connects with all of the marginalized groups on our platform so that they have an advertising, you say one throat to choke. I know we've probably heard that term before. But a person to go to, right? A name, a person who can talk to you about if you're having issues on the platform or something's bubbling up and you want to get more amplification, or if you need to understand the way things work. What we're trying to do is really connect with these voices and understand them in ways that I think our platform allows us as we have this incredible amount of public discourse. And what kind of things do people come to you with it? When they reach out to you, is it like that they're having a problem on Twitter, that people are ganging up on them, or they're trying to get a message out? Yeah, I think that right now, every single day at Twitter is different. And that's one of the things that I love about it. And so what we've been really trying to do is make these connections, I think, Twitter's 13 years old, so they are in this incredible space right now to really evolve who we are in a really great space and I'm grateful to be here. And I think this is very important from our executive staff level all the way down to really reach out to our voices on the platform and start to listen, what is it that they need? So we work with organizations, we work with individuals, and that's really kind of where I live. I work with the power voices who have something to say, who have equity, who have trust on our platform. And that doesn't mean a celebrity. These are the everyday people who use this platform to move culture forward. And so the kind of things that come through could be anything, could be learning more about our policy all the way down to wanting to get connected or having ideas about content partnerships and then kind of directing those people in the right way. But mainly right now it's done a lot of education and introduction because we want to build that trust. That's what's most important to me is my number one objective for this year. And let's get into brands a bit. So this weekend on Meet the Press, I'm not sure if you saw this, but the US soccer teams, Megan Rapino, called on brands, yeah. We're all familiar, no one here's been under a rock. She is the homie, it's been that cool. So she called on brands to quote, get comfortable throwing their weight around. And P&G actually followed suit by giving half a million dollars to the team. I'm wondering what is your take? Cause I know people have different thoughts on whether brands should be political. Do you think that brands should be part of the social conversation and if so, to what extent? I mean, absolutely. You know, right? I think we had this strange few decades where brands were just kind of fat and happy. And you guys kind of wrestling your laurels and these people who make this brand who it is, these consumers that are trusting you, buying your products, they are going through things, they are passionate about things, they are, you know, want to learn more about things. The idea that you could kind of separate yourself from those experience, I think is no longer. And I think what's really most important is that we're at kind of the first time where we've got a two way connection with brands. Brands have been talking at you for years. And the radio, the printing press and newspapers and TV, you can never talk back. Now you can talk back. And people are doing it in droves and they're doing it on platforms like ours where we see they're telling brands what they want. So this idea that you can kind of, you know, have consumers just be regular consumers who are completely removed from the things that make them who they are and their identity and their lived experience, I think is completely absurd. And it's always kind of been absurd, but nobody really had a way to challenge it. Now that we have that, I think that the days are kind of long gone of not wading into these waters that are important to people. Yeah, I love what you said about kind of the two way communication we're in now and how that's unique. What does it to you look like when a brand is being bold? Like maybe there's a recent example, but to... It's so funny, because we did this tour today study with IPG where we really came up with, we saw that about, I think it came to 25% of buyers think that cultural relevance is one of the most important reasons that they make a purchase. And so I think that was a really interesting number to us which we started to look at how, how does this matter to people, you know what I mean? So I think for a brand wanting to get into it, you mentioned Procter & Gamble. I've been really interested to see and we've got a chance to work with them on how they are kind of approaching this. And I think it's, you know, it's scary a little bit. Nobody knows if they're gonna do the wrong thing, but I look at it as a brand being an individual almost. And we talked about this I think before we tied it on the phone and that's where I kind of start to make sense of things. When you look at a brand as this big conglomerate, it feels wieldy and scary to make a stand. But I think when we think about it from an individual level, you think about how human beings connect with each other. And I think Procter & Gamble's done a great job of that. They just launched The Look, which talks about the black male experience in America, which we know has a ton of different good and both good and bad experiences that come with that. And they looked at it as an individual. They want it to be a company that said, this is part of our consumer base. We want to not only talk about this particular experience, but also see how we can drive conversation around it. And that's something that like you and I are friends. If you wanna talk about, you know that something's happening with black women. You would say, God, how can I help? What is it that we can do to better learn about this? So from an individual standpoint, it makes a little bit more sense to me. And I think brands have to get a little bit down to not overthinking things as a conglomerate and thinking of it as if I was an individual, how would we support the people that mean the most to us? Because it's kind of a no-brainer when you're a person, but when you're a brand, it comes harder. And I think that's because you've got a ton of different people making one brand. But I think if they think about it at that level, it's about brands standing up in what they believe in. And that sometimes means that people may leave or stay. You mentioned this. I mean, there's a real fear of backlash. I mean, just with P&G to use that example, as soon as they announced this, there are people on Twitter saying, I'm never gonna buy secret deodorant again. And they're saying, this is now my favorite deodorant. I will wear it for the rest of my life. Like, is there a class in how brands can deal with getting dragged on Twitter? How much time we got left? No, I'm saying three minutes. You know what, I kind of feel like, and I always say, will there be a day where I get dragged for something? And I think the thing about being dragged is that if you are confident and you stand for what you're getting dragged for, it doesn't matter. You know what I mean? If someone is dragging me, because I said Black Lives Matter, I could care less. Black Lives Matter to me, right? So I think it's one of those things where we've got to just convince brands to be bolder. And when you stand up in what you believe in, kind of that impact and that reaction, is it unfortunate? And will there be some bottom lines that could be affected? Possibly, yeah, but at the end of the day, I think that it's important for brands to understand that they have to stand up one way or the other and who they are. And sometimes it's not just such a hard political line. Sometimes it's something of sustainability or just things that are ethical. And I think when you talk about the bottom line, often what we see is that brands who are clear about who they are, we see that actually increase their bottom line because people know to align with that brand and they feel that they can see themselves in it. And my last question, a nod to your mom. So what is the best lesson that your mom passed on to you that you think is worth passing on to the women in this room? Oh my gosh, she's giving me so much, mom. I'm gonna say two, I think, that stick with me the most. Everybody suffers from an imposter syndrome, right? And I think sometimes even for black women, it comes even harder at times when you're literally kicking down the doors to these rooms that we've never been in. And I think my mom would be the one that's kinda cheering me on and telling me that nobody knows what they're doing. You know, it's such a simple thing, but you start when you get into these rooms where you've never been in, you just assume that you're this and everybody there is that, right? Nobody knows what they're doing. And I think that's, and it's true. We're all learning every day. And I think about Twitter and the charge that we have in being this platform for public discourse. We're learning every day and how to evolve this and make it work and to work at our executive level and have all of these people who are running huge companies. I've worked with CMOs. Everybody is trying to figure out what they're doing and to just evolve and be better and be smarter every single day. So I think that has helped me as well. But the other thing that she taught me is never accept the first offer. I love it. And that's something that has stuck with me as a negotiating tool. Yeah, yeah, good job mom. Good job mom. I might have time for one question in the front row here, yeah. Is it in or was it in? Yeah, so it was called woke, lit and ready. So it was actually about black Twitter and the history of kind of how African-Americans have communicated and how that has evolved to how we communicate on Twitter. So it was really kind of just understanding that group. And when I gave it to our advertising kind of that first audience, I talked a lot about how there's untapped talent there that should be valued, that often goes overlooked and how those are copywriters, those are strategists, those are organizers in ways that maybe the advertising agency wasn't traditionally thinking of. And then when I had to do this in front of all of Twitter, their one team event, I had to kind of change that. I'm like, okay, well they know this, right? They use this already. And I said, well, I kind of challenged them to say, well, how are you connecting with voices like this? And then, there you go, and this is how. Goddess, thank you so much for being here with us today. Thank you, thanks.