Twanna Hines

Twanna Hines is an award-winning performing artist, entrepreneur, writer, and sex educator with a strong internet presence. She is perhaps currently best known as the founder of Funky Brown Chick, Inc. a creative social enterprise based in Silver Spring, Maryland. She also writes a syndicated sex column for The Metro newspaper family — making her the first-ever African-American female sex columnist. She has written for major American and European outlets, including The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post, and Time Out New York. She also appeared on various North American television and radio networks, including CBC, NBC, CNN, and NPR, and has a significant social media presence, most notably on Twitter.

Hines is a gifted storyteller and has been invited to speak at events as notable as SXSW and world-renowned universities such as Harvard. Her professional work largely centres around sexual reproductive health education and reproductive justice — she understands that these issues are also interconnected with all other areas of social justice. She led edutainment programs at Planned Parenthood in New York City, working to reduce teen pregnancies, and won an Excellence Award for her efforts.

Alongside her prolific public speaking and writing career (she wrote her first op-ed piece when she was just 17 years old), she has also worked in government, working for the US State Department in The Hague (she is fluent in Dutch) and has also lived in London, Amsterdam, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Hines founded Funky Brown Chick, Inc. as an enterprise and analytics firm to help firms grow their audiences and raise funds through the latest digital technologies.