VIVION CO. was founded in the summer of 2016…
when a unique opportunity presented itself in the form of a critical civil rights moment. In New Haven, Connecticut an African-American dishwasher named Corey Menafee was fired from his job after breaking a stained-glass panel in Yale University’s Calhoun College dining hall that depicted slaves happily picking bales of cotton. Menafee was being held at a local precinct while facing a felony charge for property damage. At the time, Brooks was in her sophomore year of college at Columbia University, and had seen first hand the kind of degrading environment black workers faced in Ivy League schools.
Moved to action, she began to petition for Menafee’s immediate release. After amassing 10,000 signatures overnight via online petition, Yale dropped the felony charges. Still, Menafee remained unemployed and did not have the funds necessary to hire the kind of lawyer needed to get his job back or sue for wrongful termination. Brooks began a GoFundMe page on Menafee’s behalf to secure legal counsel and ensure his basic needs were being met.
To bolster support for his rehire, Brooks reached out to press outlets she had worked with in her former career as a journalist, including The Washington Post and Democracy Now,who agreed to give the story coverage and interview Menafee. These interviews not only allowed him tell his side of the story, but also to voice the frustrations of Yale’s many black dining hall workers. Following the press run, the fund raised $36k in two days and Yale rehired Menafee.
However, the story does not end there. Menafee’s story marked a pivotal moment for a movement organized by Yale’s current students and past alumni who had for three decades been trying to change the name of Yale’s Calhoun College, named for the vice president of the Confederacy John C. Calhoun. On February 11, 2017, a name changing ceremony took place to rename Calhoun College in honor of Grace Murray Hopper, a trailblazing computer scientist. Both Corey and Brooks were honored at the ceremony, as his efforts marked the final catalyst necessary to change the name. In 2018, VIVION CO. was contracted to associate produce the documentary Changing the Name (2021), and assisted in electing the director of the film John Lucas, acclaimed filmmaker and husband of Claudia Rankin, to tell this remarkable story.
This story marks the first victory and foundational moment of VIVION CO, and served as the basis for the firm’s mission-- to use the power of media, technology, and people in service of truth, creativity, and transformational storytelling.
Since its inception, VIVION CO. has represented a variety of notable clients and companies. In 2017, VIVION CO. launched the transformative “Millennial Banking Initiative” campaign for major investment bank Morgan Stanley, who used the campaign to attract young, newly moneyed clients to their Wealth Management arm. In 2018, VIVION CO.was hired to represent activist and former groundskeeper Dewayne Lee Johnson, “the man who beat Monsanto.” After running a successful press and speaking tour, the firm consulted Johnson in selling his life rights to a major film house for a historic film about the first successful lawsuit ($78million) ever won against agribusiness giant Bayer AG Monsanto.
VIVION CO. has been at the forefront of a number of social issues ranging from media representation politics to environmental sustainability. The firm currently represents environmental documentary filmmakers, housing redevelopment firms, as well as a host of artists, activists, and media personalities including Imam Alfred Muhummad and critically acclaimed actor Wesley Snipes. To realize the unique vision and needs of each client, founder Bianca Vivion contracts industry-best media strategists, web developers, designers, editors, directors and producers.
Looking forward, VIVION CO.envisions developing future projects in media and technology that will amass global reach. Our sincere belief is that any story in service of truth is one that must be told as loudly, clearly, and widely as possible. As our projects extend to wider audiences using more sophisticated technology, we intend to do just that.
Bianca V. Brooks
VIVION CO. Founder & Chief Media Strategist