Black Stories/07: Timothy Bardlavens

Black Stories Amazon Design logo on a background of multicolored dots forming an abstract pattern resembling noise or digital distortion, with a black silhouette of a person's profile in the left side of the image.

Timothy Bardlavens, Director of Product Equity at Adobe, joins Media Producer Justin James Lopez to chat about navigating whiteness in corporate America and loving yourself. Let’s hear his story!

Timothy Bardlavens is chaotic good in its purest form. He is a Gay, Black man from the Carolinas, the youngest son of a single mother and everything institutional trauma and oppression says you cannot be or become. He is a Design Leader, a Cultural Strategist, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) specialist, a Co-Founder, a writer and an International Speaker & Facilitator on topics of design & tech culture, equity, white supremacy and systems of oppression.

Over the past decade, he has also built and scaled teams, set product vision and strategy for Facebook App, Zillow, Microsoft, Capital One and others. Currently a Director of product Equity at Adobe, Timothy leads Problems & Ecosystem within Central integrity—who’s missions are to create scalable solutions to reduce harm, abuse, and misinformation while also increasing peoples’ voice and equitable outcomes across the family of apps (i.e. Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp & Metaverse) for over 3.6 billion people around the world. Previously, he led Community Relevance and Culture within Facebook App—whose mission is to create experiences that enable culture to emerge and thrive on Facebook.

As a cultural strategist, he specializes in assessing, dismantling and rebuilding organizational cultures built on systems of oppression and white supremacy. Timothy works with leaders to develop people-centric strategies with clear, actionable steps to increase diversity, create more inclusive spaces and design more equitable systems.



Partnering with Antionette Carroll, Timothy co-founded &Design—an organization whose mission is to cultivate and activate Black, Latinx, and Indigenous Designers by providing tools, resources and training to support them on their creative career journey.

Timothy is an active member of Adobe’s Design Circle, as well as an international speaker and facilitator, speaking on topics of Organizational Culture, DEI, Design Diversity, Racial Justice Product Design/Development, Inclusive Design and more.

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