Juliette Powell

Powell was born in Manhattan, New York in 1971 and moved to Montreal, Quebec with her French-Canadian mother at the age of eight.[3] In high school she excelled in math and science courses and swam twice a week, and has stated she saw herself as a shy and unpopular student.[4]

Her time in the world of beauty pageants began with her outrage when she heard a rumour that the second place winner of the Miss Montreal pageant had scored higher than the first-place winner, but the judges had not accepted her as the winner because she was black.[4] She has stated that she did not want to be a beauty queen but wanted to prove a point when she entered the Miss Montreal pageant herself, later entering and ultimately winning the 1989 Miss Canada Pageant.[4] During this time she also studied Commerce at Vanier College, graduating in 1992.[3]

After her reign as Miss Canada, including representing the country at Miss Universe 1989, Powell joined MusiquePlus in 1992 as a VJ, while also studying finance and business at McGill University.[3] She was host of MusiquePlus' weekly dance music show, Bouge de là! until 1996.[1][5] That same year, she moved to Toronto, transferring to MuchMusic and becoming host of Electric Circus and French Kiss, while also studying economics at the University of Toronto.

In 1999, Powell began working for CablePulse 24 as a business reporter and founded media and consulting company Powell International Entertainment Inc. (PIE Inc.) which produced features with personalities such as Nelson Mandela, Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, Sir Richard Branson, Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Janet Jackson, Tina Turner, and Prince Charles.[3][6]

In 2001, she co-authored the media section for the UN Plan of Action of the World Conference against Racism. This began an ongoing advisory role with international institutions that grew to include the United Nations, World Economic Forum, and the World Bank, among others.[7] In 2011, she began working with the E-G8, an extension of the G8 Summit, created to inform G8 leaders on the future of the internet and connected society.[8]

Powell’s writing first gained notoriety with her 2009 book 33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence and Run a Successful Business using Social Networking (Financial Times Press, ISBN 978-0-13-715435-7).[9] Her early publications on the business applications of social media were translated into Chinese, Korean, German, Portuguese and Spanish.

Powell's live commentary on NBC, CNN, ABC, BBC, BNN and combined TV appearances and columns for Bloomberg raised business and ethical issues stemming from social media, including privacy, cybersecurity, and bias. She became a frequent keynote speaker and media collaborator examining the implications of big data. In 2016 Powell gave a TED Talk on Unconscious Bias at TEDx St Louis Women's event titled It's About Time We Challenge Our Unconscious Biases.[10]

Powell later translated her Canadian degree into a US-recognized degree, graduating from Columbia University summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Phi Beta Kappa membership.[6] Her thesis research, “The Limits and Possibilities in the Self-Regulation of Artificial Intelligence,” drew on her consulting for Intel Labs and other multinational companies and later served as the foundation of her book The AI Dilema.

In 2021 Juliette joined the Faculty of New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, teaching courses at the intersection of media, technology, and ethics.

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