PERSON: Kierna Mayo


Employer

EBONY
Position

Editor-in-Chief
Biography

Kierna Mayo is the Editorial Director, Digital for EBONY.com. She is the former Editorial Director of Tyra.com, where she developed a cutting-edge, online women’s magazine for Tyra Banks’ Bankable Enterprises. She is also former online editor at Cafemom.com. Kierna has written about culture and lifestyle for over 20 years. Her critically acclaimed writings have appeared in major national magazines including Essence, Marie Claire, Glamour, Seventeen, Vibe and Uptown among others. Most notably, Kierna is also the co-founder and founding Editor-in-Chief of Honey magazine. Recognized for its visionary editorial direction, Honey became the first of a new genre in American magazine publishing—a young, female demographic influenced by an emerging hip-hop culture.

Post Honey, Kierna developed a 1.0 Black girls’ web venture, LikePepper.com, and was later chosen to oversee the new direction of Essence Girl, a magazine supplement for millions of ‘tween and teen African American girls. From there she served as senior editor of Cosmogirl. During her tenure, she became a founding member of the Hearst Diversity Council, an executive body created to increase minority representation within the company. In the earliest part of Kierna’s career she was an editor at The Source magazine where she covered the politics of hip-hop culture, and at City Limits magazine where she served on the development committee of NYC progressive policy think tank, Center for an Urban Future. Kierna’s work has been featured in several books including And It Don’t Stop: The Best American Hip-Hop Journalism of the Last 25 Years, and cited in numerous academic texts including The Invention of Race: Black Culture and the Politics of Representation.

Kierna is a graduate of Hampton University with a BA in Mass Media Arts. She resides in New York City with her husband and two young sons, all of whom wear hoodies.

— library.fora.tv
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