Annual Events:
Sophie Williams
Sophie Williams is a regular panellist, speaker, consultant, and workshop facilitator with a focus on Anti-Racism, Diversity and Inclusion, and Allyship. Through her talks she encourages people to take their first steps of their own activism or allyship journeys, or to build on their existing foundations to truly build equality into their personal and working lives.
About Sophie Williams
Sophie Williams is an expert in the field of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She is the Author of acclaimed books Anti-Racist Ally (2020) and Millennial Black (2021), a Ted Speaker, the Founder of the @OfficialMillennialBlack Instagram page, and an Intersectional Equity Consultant for several businesses in the UK.
Sophie Williams regularly hosts presentations, workshops, and training sessions for businesses such as Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, Barclays, the NHS, The Rio Ferdinand Foundation, UK Civil Service, Sky, and Cambridge University.
Sophie’s writing has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, Bustle, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Refinery29, Elle, and Grazia.
Before beginning writing, Sophie had a career in advertising; where she has held the positions of COO and CFO. More recently, Sophie held the role of Global Manager of Production Planning at Netflix – she left in spring 2021 after leading the European employee walkout in protest of transphobic content.
Sophie is the founder of the Millennial Black Instagram account, which is the origin of the little pink infographic squares about race and allyship you might have seen going viral in 2020.
As TED speaker, Sophie has amassed a great following. Her talk on The Glass Cliff (the rigged test of leadership) is one of only five TEDxLondon talks to have ever been upgraded to be ‘full’ TED Talks on the TEd site.
- Race
- Gender
- Allyship / Anti-Racism in day to day life
- Building anti-racist workplaces
- The Glass Cliff – What happens when you break through the glass ceiling / why not all leaders are set up for success
- Intersectionality
- Building successful, diverse working environments
- Social Media and becoming an influencer
- Writing and Publishing
Testimonials
"
The Race Equality Network at Care Quality Commission contacted Sophie Williams to present and facilitiate a discussion on workplace anti-racism as part of our Black History Month events.
Throughout the discussion Sophie was wonderfully articulate, meaningful, witty and honest. We had great engagement from our colleagues during the call, drawing on their own experiences, as well as contextualizing some of the themes form Sophie's presentation.
"CQC - The Quality Care Commission
"I attended Sophie's Anti Racism allyship event as part of my companies Diversity Week and it made a lasting impression on me and I know it's had the same impact on a variety of colleagues across the business as they are still talking about it now. We are now talking about being an Ally in regards to all of our diversity strands."
DWF Law
"Sophie is a captivating speaker with great energy and enthusiasm. Her talk had a profound influence on them and each young person has personally contacted me to express how much they enjoyed the talk."
The Rio Ferdinand Foundation
"Sophie makes potentially difficult subjects very accessible with her down to earth approach...She also fielded a range of tough questions, answering everything our people wanted to know more about without hesitation and very candidly and thoughtfully. I couldn't recommend her more highly."
Paul Bennun- VP Employee Experience - DAZN
"A fantastic session; impactful and thought-provoking, delivered engagingly and with wit, wisdom and empathy."
Department of International Trade
"Sophie's session was engaging, thoughtful and enjoyable. Some staff have labelled it as the best presentation they have ever been invited to at Vevo!"
VEVO
"“By far the best presentation of the day – and indeed the conference. Very thought provoking and educational, in terms of understanding key concepts and indeed definitions.” “Excellent presentation challenging our thinking and giving really thought provoking ideas on how to be an activist, anti-racist and an ally”"
NHS PROVIDERS ANNUAL CONFERENCE (SENIOR NHS LEADERSHIP)
"We really loved having Sophie at the conference, it was a highly relevant and insightful session and was incredibly well received by the audience who told us they found it impactful and thought provoking. We would highly recommend Sophie as a speaker and look forward to working with her in the future. We received some great feedback from our delegates."
NHS CONFEDERATION’S HEALTH AND CARE WOMEN LEADERS NETWORK
