Kaplan has been a YouTube superstar, growing monthly views for the Nickelodeon and Awesomeness TV channel portfolios by more than 264%, or over 1 billion. You can thank her for Nick’s Pride Month on YouTube content, which included two videos featuring drag queen Nina West. Her work has been centered on highlighting diverse stories for Paramount’s kid and Gen Z viewers in its unscripted and digital programming. She values the allies in her life that practice empathy and intentionally create space for their colleagues’ lived experiences. “All colleagues deserve to feel represented and heard, so it’s important to be intentional about creating an inclusive culture—prioritizing it, promoting it and sustaining it,” she says.
How does your company encourage employees to bring their true selves to work? At Nickelodeon and Awesomeness, we are dedicated to making sure our diverse young audience sees themselves reflected on our screens and platforms. And one way we can effectively do that is by fostering an inclusive creative environment that reflects the content we set out to create. We encourage great ideas from everywhere, and want our employees – across all levels—to bring their unique selves and ideas to the table, whether it’s celebrating personal milestones in our all-hands meetings or brainstorming new content ideas together. My team has internal committees dedicated to educating on and celebrating differences, and Paramount as a whole has many incredible employee resource groups to support inclusion efforts across the entire company.
Advice for allies on how to show up for their LGBTQ+ colleagues? My advice for allies on how to show up for their LGBTQ+ colleagues would be to listen, and intentionally create space for colleagues’ lived experiences. Practicing empathy and expanding on what you consume/follow also helps build understanding of communities and experiences that might not be your own. All colleagues deserve to feel represented and heard, so it’s important to be intentional about creating an inclusive culture – prioritizing it, promoting it and sustaining it.