Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Rona Matthew, a leading woman in marketing and entertainment and currently a senior product marketing manager at TikTok.  Rona’s career has already been an adventure from when she started at Howard University to spending eight years in South Africa leading her own brand agency.  Being part of the majority, surrounding herself with other creatives has been very meaningful to Rona, so when she decided to “upskill” and go to Columbia Business School she had to develop a new network.  Finding her tribe and being a leader today at TikTok’s black employee resource group is important to Rona.  As a woman, a woman of color, Rona knows she is part of a small community in the workplace and affinity groups are just not enough.  Rona is pleased that TikTok took her advice to begin recruiting from HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) as an important step to creating a more diverse workforce.  With her work, Rona aims to sustain artists and creatives and she is just getting started.

Rona Matthew is a Product Marketing Manager at TikTok where she drives the development, positioning, and sales of the company’s marquee advertising product, the Branded Hashtag Challenge.

She’s an accomplished marketing professional, collaboration facilitator, and dealmaker with a passion for creating and growing meaningful brands in tech, CPG, media and entertainment. Rona started her career in branding and advertising in Johannesburg, South Africa. While in Johannesburg, she founded a brand consulting company, Brandpulse and also led business development at Bamboo Network, a brand innovation firm. Rona has worked with a number of budding start-ups and multinationals including Spotify, IBM, Unilever, 3M, BET, Ericsson, and Pernod Ricard.

Rona holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Marketing from Howard University.

You can follow Rona on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Read the transcript here.