Kymani Hayden

Kymani Hayden is a New York City native with a passion for building community, social justice, and creative collaboration. Previously, she worked at City Year, an AmeriCorps program - where she was a recruitment manager within the talent acquisition team. The core of her work was led through the lens of Diversity, Belonging, Inclusion, and Equity. During her time there, she led and supported outreach tailored to disadvantaged youth and primarily young people of color, with the aim of employing them at public schools across the country, where building academic retention and improving learning for students are key pillars that drive the program’s success. Throughout her undergraduate career, she studied abroad in London where she worked as a Public Relations intern at a BBC Studios casting agency. While there, she expanded her interest in talent acquisition, social media strategy, and publicity work. Kymani is an alumna of Columbia’s Upward Bound program at the Double Discovery Center and prides herself on being a true Harlem-American. She also works in fashion production from time to time, having experience working on major productions such as New York Fashion Week.

She holds an MS in Social Media and Mobile Marketing from Pace University’s Lubin School of Business and a BA in Culture and Communication from Ithaca College. Kymani is a digital creator by heart and enjoys capturing and creating organic content around day-to-day living in the city, local community events and travel.