Name: Nia Batts | Director of Strategic Partnerships for Viacom Inc.
Age: 26
Nia serves as Director of Strategic Partnerships for Viacom Inc., helping with operation strategy and planning for Viacom’s marketing council, corporate responsibility council, and programming council. These internal organizations are meant to maximize all the resources and the marketing efforts of the entire company. She believes this is a great opportunity because she sits at the center of the business.
Nia’s many cross-divisional projects include the launch and roll-out of Get Schooled, a national education initiative co-developed by Viacom and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is currently working on a campaign for Super 8, and just wrapped up a show that has behind-the-scenes footage on Memphis high school seniors landing a visit from President Barack Obama.
She became interested in this position because she has always been into entertainment, programming, and how things on the screen can move you. She always thought that she would be creating content, but through Viacom became really interested in the marketing and distribution of that content.
The best thing about what she does is the people that she works with and the relationships that she is able to incorporate into her work.
When Nia was asked who she admired in her industry, she quickly named one of our other “30 Under 30” women Kelli Coleman. She states that a lot of people felt like Kelli had the keys to the castle, but in fact she has worked for everything that she has earned. She is excited to see what is next as Kelli begins to move a little more into content creation, and is eager to partner with her on some of these projects, hopefully bringing them home to Viacom.
Her first job was working for Kevin Liles at Def Jam. She thought it was a lot of fun. She got to work on music videos, talent showcases, and administrative responsibilities for Kevin. She kind of had to dive right in, and thinks that is when she truly fell in love with entertainment. It was faced paced, real, raw, gritty, and at the end of the day it was all about business. It was interesting to see the dynamic between work and play.
People might be surprised to know that she climbed the Great Wall of China and hopes to one day climb the Machu Picchu. I encouraged her to start training now!
Her best quality is honesty. She tries to be really straight forward with people. She also works everyday to be more honest with herself to ensure she is happy about the work she is doing and the people in her life.
She advises people to enjoy the experience that is in front of them. When she was younger she was very caught up in what she thought she should be doing and what she expected for her life. It came to a point when she had to stop and realize the great opportunities that were in front of her. She is a planner, and you can’t plan everything. You have to let each opportunity prepare you for the next. Nia throws in that you should always listen to your mother. The older she gets the more she realizes her mother was right all along.
In the future she plans to pursue content creation more actively. She loves telling stories and wants to continue to do that. She is also very passionate about education reform, and wants to continue to focus on this as well. Nia has gotten to the point where she feels like it might also be time for her to go back to school. She is in the middle of reconciling everything, but thinks the answer is that she can do it all.
