Speaker

Kyra Kyles is an award-winning journalist, public speaker, multi-platform content producer and unapologetic advocate for diverse representation in mass media.  She is the CEO at Oakland-based YR Media (formerly Youth Radio), an award-winning national network of young multicultural journalists and artists who create content—including music, investigative journalism, and documentaries— for this generation. 


Past Editor-in-Chief of EBONY Magazine, where she also served as Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Editorial, Kyra holds over 20 years of experience writing for publications including EBONY, JET magazine, JETmag.com, Chicago Tribune, Bustle, the Chicago Sun-Times, Vibe.com and TheGrio to name a handful. 
She also has ghost-written two books aimed at millennial audiences and two self-improvement manuscripts.  In tandem with her sister/business partner, she is the co-producer/director/writer of several buzzworthy digital Webisodes, including a parody of Facebook users called “Don’t Like” and “Human Resources: The Series,” a sci fi workplace comedy which starred custom-made puppets. To date, Myth Lab’s projects have been written up in LA Weekly, Reel Chicago, Chicago Defender, profiled on WhoHaHa.com, and earned the ladies (and some puppets) a guest appearance on WCIU’s “U and Me This Morning.”



Kyra wows audiences across platforms with her unique blend of humor, social commentary and media expertise as a highly-sought-after keynote and featured speaker at high-profile events including the WOKE Entrepreneur Conference, Blavity EmpowerHer Conference, Social Media Week, the inaugural Haiti Tech Summit, the Chicago Humanities Festival, the Illinois League of Women Voters and back-to-back appearances at the Digital Strategy Innovation conference as well as Social Media Week. 


A go-to guest for issuesrelated to the intersection of pop culture, race, sex and gender in America, she has appeared as an on-air expert on numerous national outlets, such as The Real, NPR, WTTW’s “Black People Don’t,” CNN, BBC, Huffington Post Black Voices, and makes regular on-air contributions to WBEZ-FM, WVON-AM. She also co-produced, as well as hosted, a popular television segment called “The Kyles Files” on WGN-TV.  


Currently, this Chicago native-turned-Oakland transplant keeps up a high profile, recently appearing on FOX Soul’s “Book of Sean” and being profiled by Authority on Medium and in 2019, guest hosted an hour-long public affairs show (“The Morning Shift”) on WBEZ-FM.  She reaches nearly 10 million monthly readers combined through buzzworthy opinion pieces for popular platforms including ZORA at Medium, Bustle and TheGrio. 
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Kyra’s extensive work in the print, digital and broadcast realms have earned her numerous accolades including the Chicago Tribune’s coveted Jones Beck Editorial Excellence Award for Journalism, a Media Movers & Shakers award, Top 40 Under 40 awards from both WVON-AM and the Chicago Defender, the Tribune Company’s RedEye On-the-Ball Award, and inclusion in Folio’s Top 100 in Media Industry list.
A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism where she obtained two degrees simultaneously as part of an accelerated master’s program, Kyra is the former twice-elected president of the National Association of Black Journalists chapter and is a member of the Association of Women Journalists. She sits on the boards and advisory bodies for several organizations including streaming platform, kweliTV; indie music app PLATFORMZ; and Dream On Education, a non-profit focused on mentoring under-resourced youth on Chicago’s South and West sides. She also tutored and mentored young women on Chicago’s South Side through the Mercy Home for Girls program.