Twitter welcomes Candi Castleberry-Singleton as VP of inclusion and diversity
Twitter has welcomed Candi Castleberry-Singleton into its fold as vice president of inclusion and diversity, as the micro blogging service ramps up efforts to better represent the demographic of its user base at board level.
Twitter welcomes new VP of inclusion and diversity
Castleberry-Singleton supplants Jeffrey Siminoff in the post following his decision to stand down in February (amid widespread criticism of handing the role to a white male) and will bring a wealth of experience of delivering diversity initiatives within corporate America, having previously served similar roles at Motorola and Sun Microsystems.
Sharing her enthusiasm for the new role on Twitter, Castleberry-Singleton tweeted: “I'm so excited to join the team at Twitter to lead inclusion and diversity efforts for employees and the Twitter community. I look forward to bringing what I’ve learned to Twitter."
Castleberry-Singleton’s appointment was revealed by chief executive Jack Dorsey in an earlier tweet.
Diversity has slowly nudged its way up the tech brand's priority list in recognition that its staffing make-up is still out of kilter with the composition of its customers and audiences.
The Pew Research Centre for instance calculates that while 28% of African-American and Hispanic internet users use Twitter just 20% of their white counterparts do so. Meanwhile 90% of its employees are white or Asian with just 4% hailing from a Latino background and a mere 3% being African-American.
These issues are by no means limited to Twitter however, with Silicon Valley as a whole acknowledging that it is still disproportionately dominated by white and Asian men.