Meet Kaaya
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From a young age, Kaaya found herself making astute cultural observations while navigating diverse environments across familial, social and academic groups. Her first-generation Ghanaian heritage in conjunction with international studies have been integral to shaping her worldview. During her tenure at Howard University, she was involved with the Young Africana Leadership Initiative and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation which facilitated her transformative study abroad experiences in Ghana, South Africa, and China.
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Social impact has been a thruline in her work since her early days at 72andSunny working on Truth Initiative, Civic Nation’s Creator Force, and the NFL social justice initiative, Inspire Change. Kaaya solidified her aptitude in cultural strategy for impact at Cashmere Agency where she developed culture-forward strategies for Disney, FX, Twitch, Nickelodeon and Taco Bell. After starting her own freelance practice, she continued this work by building the go-to-market strategy and brand architecture for the Virgil Abloh Foundation, in addition to cultural strategy and research for brands like The North Face, Beats and Target.
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Most notably, she built the creative strategy for ‘Came To Play'; Disney’s first-of-its-kind national inclusion campaign, extending an intentional invitation to Black guests. Additionally, she authored a custom, RFP winning, research methodology for an inaugural Black audience insights playbook made for distribution across the Disney enterprise of 200+ brands.
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In line with her professional experience, Kaaya has demonstrated a strong personal commitment to activism and community engagement with over a decade-long track record of mentoring BIPOC students. Her involvement has included organizations such as the One Club for Creativity, Tec Leimert, The Collective Identity, The Da Vinci School, Teen Vogue and the Howard University 21st Century Capstone Program.
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Outside of her work in strategy, Kaaya feeds her creative curiosity through her mixed media art, travel and a healthy dose of retail therapy. (:
