Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 05: Angela Benton

Angela Benton talks about starting NewMe Accelerator, whose black and brown founders have raised $42 million in venture capital. Super-early to Black tech media with BlackWeb 2.0, she discusses building her personal brand while being a single mother, battling cancer, and whether or not most of the “diversity” gains in Silicon Valley will go to privileged white women.

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God-is Rivera seems to stand out in the crowd. She draws attention in whatever industry she is in. Named an Ad Age “Woman to Watch” and Adweek “Disruptor” in 2018, Rivera is now going to work her savvy at Twitter in the newly created position of  global director of culture and community.

Rivera is leaving ad agency VMLY&R to take the position.

According to AfroTech, Rivera, who will be New York-based, will start her new job on November 12. Rivera said her new role will be as an interaction between brand communications and experiential — “so that we can bring the energy of Twitter communities and their voices both on and off the platform.”

Rivera knows her being in the post is a win for diversity. “I’m really proud to be a Black woman leading this effort at Twitter,” she said in a statement. “As a Black woman who has worked in industries in which I have been underrepresented, I feel a great responsibility to amplify and support diverse communities, and they exist in full force on Twitter.”

Blacks have a major presence on Twitter. A March 2018 survey from Pew Research Center, found that 26 percent of U.S. Black adults use Twitter, while 24 percent of White adults, and 20 percent of Latinx adults in the U.S. use Twitter.

 

 

Twitter said in an internal note that Rivera will be responsible for making sure Twitter’s campaigns and programs are “connective, inclusive and reflective” of communities it serves. Rivera will also work on projects like  #NBATwitter and Twitter’s #HereWeAre, focusing on women in tech.

Rivera is actually a seasoned tweeter and already had somewhat of a professional  relationship with the company. She participated in a panel on #BlackTwitter at Advertising Week NYC last year and also spoke at Twitter’s #OneTeam summit this summer.

Rivera’s departure from VMLY&R comes a month after WPP merged VML with sister agency Y&R. Rivera, who hails from the Bronx, joined VML in 2016 in “a social media strategy role, but after trying to get her agency to talk more openly about issues of inclusion and diversity, her role eventually evolved into the director of inclusion and cultural resonance. She’s been a frequent speaker at industry events on those topics,” Ad Age reported.
Twitter has a long way to go in restoring some convince in the service, especially after the company most recently blatantly ignored political commentator Rochelle Ritchie’s complaints about threatening and racist tweets from Cesar Sayoc, who went on days later to mail out 14 pipe bombs to anti-Trump public figures as well as to CNN.

It took Twitter until after Sayoc’s arrest to ban him from the site, meanwhile, it has been found that Twitter (as well as Facebook and YouTube), tend to place bans on Black users at a higher rate than white users over content.

https://twitter.com/GodisRivera/status/1058410248791306240