Charles’ resume is a vision board of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies. In 2014, she was named Head of Global Music and Culture Communications at Twitter, where she also helped found the Black employee resource group, Blackbird. The following year, she became Instagram’s first music and youth culture hire, creating the company’s first Black History Month program and launching major initiatives including #CelebrateBlackCreatives and the #BlackGirlMagic partnership with Spotify. During her two-year stint at VSCO, she spearheaded the #BlackJoyMatters campaign as the director of communications before taking her talents to TikTok. She also formed her own creative collective and in-house agency, Future of Creatives and Magic in Her Melanin, to continue opening doors for creatives of color.
Over the past year, TikTok has sought to improve its relationship with Black creators after a number of creators have spoken out about not receiving credit or recognition for their creation of viral trends on the platform. (Over the summer, several Black creators even withheld from posting to the platform as part of a virtual “strike” to highlight their contributions to the app.)
In January, TikTok created a Black creatives incubator program with MACRO to better support Black TikTok creators, and earlier this week, 10 Black creators were awarded $50,000 grants as part of the partnership between the two companies.
Outside of her work with major tech companies, Charles is also the founder of two creative collectives, Future of Creatives and Magic In Her Melanin, focused on amplifying women of color and other underrepresented creators.
