On Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022, Create & Cultivate’s 100 List, presented by Chevrolet, recognized 100 trailblazing women for their contributions across a variety of industries. This year, the company announced that Telva McGruder, General Motors’ Chief of Diversity and Equity, would be honored.
The event was held at the city market social house in Los Angeles and showcased McGruder’s hard work and dedication to fighting for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion among the brands of General Motors.
Previous to McGruder’s time at GM, Telva spent many years as an engineer and was a FIRST robotics mentor at the high school level, helping with strategy, design, and the robot’s build. She was also able to support and motivate the girls on the team, as well as help, prepare them to study technical disciplines in college.
What’s Trending’s Andy Lalwani got a chance to sit down with McGruder and fire off some questions.
How is Chevy shaping up to be a diverse narrative right now in the digital environment?
“Chevy’s doing a tremendous amount of work right now in the digital space, and Chevy has always been a brand that’s been focused on diversity in many different ways. I am really excited about the ways that they’re migrating digital. They’re spending so much more money on digital today than we have before, particularly in diverse audiences, and so they’re doing the work to get the data and the insights so we can target our digital presence very well.”
Is there a specific platform, like TikTok you identify with Chevy that has a great impact?
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“Yes, so Chevy definitely has a great impact on Twitter, and I know the GM brand, right, just had a huge activation on TikTok, which is you know super exciting – Jumping into TikTok with the overall GM Brand. Chevy also has a strong presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, and places of that nature.”
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Why do you think leaving a digital footprint is so important to any brand?
“Yea, digital engagement is important because that’s the way people are navigating through the world right now, and what’s really cool about the digital footprint is it really requires the brand to truly understand the audience. To truly understand the audience and engage with that audience, engage with that customer base, in a way that they’ve never done before.”
Right before wrapping up WT’s interview with McGruder, we ask her what was the biggest “thing” we could be expecting from chevy this year to which she responded with “Well, let me say the biggest thing…I see chevy continue to do is engagements like create and cultivate…also the new Chevy Silverado which will be launching next year. We’re super excited about that as well as the Chevy Blazer, and the Chevy Equinox, an all-electric vehicle that we’re gonna be bringing out here as Chevy works to ramp up their portfolio they’ll include electric vehicles.”
McGruder’s presence in the automotive industry has been nothing short of a huge step towards equality and diversity.
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