"I try to bring together great teams and let the magic happen with the support of coaching, sufficient resources and space to learn from challenges."
Kyra Kyles is CEO of YR Media – an Oakland-based national nonprofit that provides creative resources and career opportunities to predominantly BIPOC youth in the areas of media, music and technology. Kyra is a 20-year veteran of the media industry and passionate advocate for youth voice. As an expert in diversity and representation, she is helping to create pathways for young people to drive the national conversation and, ultimately, take their seat at the table as leaders in media, tech and creative industries. Kyra has always placed a consistent emphasis on equity and representation, and holds an impressive track record of expanding young audiences and leading sustainable organizational growth.
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Table of Contents
We’re happy that you could join us today! Please introduce yourself to our readers. What’s your story?
Kyra Kyles: My name is Kyra Kyles and I am the CEO of YR Media, an Oakland-based national media training and production center that centers content produced by emerging diverse creators aged 14 to 24. I’m a 20-plus year journalism industry professional and (for just as long) have been an advocate for representation within the mainstream media. Prior to joining YR Media, I served in roles including Editor-in-Chief, Senior Vice President of Editorial at EBONY and JET publications and I’ve also worked for the Tribune Company, another point of focus for younger readers, at that time, Millennials.
CEOs and leaders usually have different motives and aspirations when getting started. Let’s go straight to the beginning. What was your primary goal for starting your business? Was it wealth, respect, or to offer a service that would help improve lives?
Kyra Kyles: Though I do have my own production company called Myth Lab Entertainment with my younger sister/creative co-conspirator, Kozi Kyles, I joined YR Media at the beginning of 2020.
Almost 30 years ago now, YR Media was founded to address the deep racial inequities in both media coverage and newsrooms. We’ve now evolved to support creators across media by training them across journalism, music, interactive and design, then moving them into paid positions within our production departments. What YR Media offers is career opportunities and skills training aimed at reshaping the narrative that does not accurately or fairly reflect the makeup of this nation. We center underrepresented communities, including BIPOC and LGBQT+
Tell us about 2 things that you like and two things that you dislike about your industry. Share what you’d like to see change and why.
Kyra Kyles: I love the media’s ability to connect us as a society and give us a window into each other’s lives. Though social media has also taken on that charge as well, the news media has always served in this role. That brings me to what is challenging about this industry. The makeup of media has been very White and male for centuries and therefore, the lens is skewed and the narrative is far too homogenous. I’d like to change who we deem worthy of storytellers and broaden the scope of the stories that are centered.
Companies around the world are rapidly changing their work environment and organizational culture to facilitate diversity. How do you see your organizational culture changing in the next 3 years and how do you see yourself creating that change?
Kyra Kyles: I am fortunate that I entered an organization that took diversity very seriously, as that is quite honestly, the bare minimum that any company should do. Nobody should be congratulated for hiring in a manner that mirrors the makeup of this country and the world at large. With a staff and leadership team that is over 80% BIPOC, the goal at YR Media in the next three years is to continue to attract and retain diverse talent, as well as move that talent into positions of strong agency and influence. I don’t see myself creating that change alone, as our team is doing that work in a collaborative way.
According to the Michigan State University “An organization’s culture is responsible for creating the kind of environment in which the business is managed, and has a major impact on its ultimate success or failure.” What kind of culture has your organization adopted and how has it impacted your business?
Kyra Kyles: Our culture is about collaboration, empowerment and innovation.
This allows us to constantly mull new ways to serve the newest generation of content creators, or as I call them, YR stars. Being cutting edge is central to our mission and we have to mitigate risks for our continued sustainability, but at the same time we must reward the desire to (with research, data and group inputs) try new approaches and initiatives. As a result of this attitude, even amid a pandemic, we launched a virtual hub in the Midwest that is based in Chicago. This year, due to our strong financial performance, we will now shift it to physical by the end of 2022. We were not afraid to try something new to expand and deepen our impact, but we did the necessary research to assess this initiative carefully before opting to go even further with our plans.
Richard Branson once famously stated “There’s no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.” and Stephen R. Covey admonishes to “Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. What’s your take on creating a great organizational culture?
Kyra Kyles: I absolutely agree with Branson and Covey. Our team enables us to do what we do and reach higher and higher levels of achievement and impact. We offer numerous resources for health and wellbeing, and it is particularly helpful to folks given all the challenges presented by the pandemic
The overwhelming majority of more than 9,000 workers included in a recent Accenture survey on the future of work said they felt a hybrid work model would be optimal going forward, a major reason for that being the improved work-life balance that it offers. How do you promote work-life balance at your company?
Kyra Kyles: We aim not to e-mail team members during their off hours. We use Slack, Asana and other productivity tools to put focus on goals versus micromanagement. There is an emphasis on personal and professional development; recognition of team members through a weekly e-mail blast I created called #MondayMotivation; equitable wages and task forces for important organization-wide initiatives to ensure it’s not just those at certain levels within the team that get to shape decisions. We also send out surveys on anything from our upcoming headquarter improvement effort to opinions on our platform redesigns to topping preferences for a staff-wide virtual Chicago-style pizza party we were planning.
How would you describe your company’s overall culture? Give us examples.
Kyra Kyles: YR Media is a very team-oriented culture, in large part because our content is co-led with emerging creators and we have to be as good at listening as we are at delivering. An example of this is our recent partnership with the Washington Post which teamed our adult staff from both outlets with teen contributors talking about issues of racial identity.
This effort would not have been as powerful had it not centered the youth perspective. Instead of picking a topic and asking the teen contributors to talk about it, their ideas and thoughts shaped the entire experience from start to finish. We also were reunited with one of our former YR stars who is now on the Washington Post team, so it was a full-circle and momentous occasion. Another example is our content meetings which we hold on a monthly basis. Team members from all over the organization attend and talk about what they are working on. Since we’re on Zoom, the chat box is alive with different staffers adding to the ideation, offering to assist with certain aspects of other department initiatives or just doling out the +1s of support and excitement. It is a really great interaction and staves off the Zoom gloom
It is believed that a company’s culture is rooted in a company’s values. What are your values and how do they affect daily life at the workplace?
Kyra Kyles: YR Media’s values are directly tied to championing underrepresented voices and perspectives which means we must be collaborative, proactive, dynamic and brave.
An organization’s management has a deep impact on its culture. What is your management style and how well has it worked so far?
Kyra Kyles: I would describe my management style as collaborative and supportive. I try to bring together great teams and let the magic happen with the support of coaching, sufficient resources and space to learn from challenges.
Every organization suffers from internal conflicts, whether functional or dysfunctional. Our readers would love to know, how do you solve an internal conflict?
Kyra Kyles: Treating other team members with dignity and respect is part of the covenant of YR Media employment and it is included in the 360-degree reviews that accompany all of our annual performance assessments. If a miscommunication or other issue causes us to deviate from that, our HR team is great about conflict resolution and coming out of it with actionable solutions, versus a blame game. No system is perfect and there are bound to be conflicts, but open communication, a solutions-oriented approach and just a great group of people mean that it is not a pervasive issue.
According to Culture AMP, Only 40% of women feel satisfied with the decision-making process at their organization (versus 70% of men), which leads to job dissatisfaction and poor employee retention. What is your organization doing to facilitate an inclusive and supportive environment for women?
Kyra Kyles: Women make up the majority of our team, and are at all levels of the organization. But no matter whether you just started or have spent decades at YR Media, we try to create avenues so that feedback is coming in from as many individuals as possible as we make major decisions. We unapologetically strive to create multiple channels of input, from surveys to in-person meetings and also through an organization-wide 1:1s I conducted when I joined YR Media. Many of the observations and insights that were shared to me shaped policies and efforts we are rolling out even now, two years later.
We’re grateful for all that you have shared so far! We would also love to know if there was one thing that you could improve about your company’s culture, what would it be?
Kyra Kyles: We’re always looking for more ways to connect and collaborate. Technology can make that easier, but sometimes it can also be a barrier so we continue to innovate ways to ensure we are leveraging our collective brainpower to keep up our progress and deepen our impact.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Kyra Kyles: The economy’s ebbs and flows and COVID-19’s far reaching effects on donor and foundation support remain a trend we need to watch, so we always want to be cognizant of that and plan accordingly.
This has been truly insightful and we thank you for your time. Our final question, however, might be a bit of a curveball. If you had a choice to either fly or be invisible, which would you choose and why?
Kyra Kyles: I’ll go with flying powers. It would save a lot of time spent in the airport.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Kyra Kyles for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Kyra Kyles or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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