Samantha Williams

Samantha Williams (born c. 1985 in Montrose, Baldwin County) is executive director of the Birmingham Promise Initiative.

Samantha is the oldest of four daughters of Roy Williams. She graduated from Fairhope High School and completed a bachelor of arts in history at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. in 2006 and a master's in development studies at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2009. After a year and a half teaching for the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls she earned a second master's in international education policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While there she worked as a research associate and project manager for Harvard's South Africa Education Leadership Collaboration.

In 2012 Williams began working for the Teach For All network as Director of Regional Growth Strategy and Development, based in Johannesburg. In 2016 she was promoted to head of the network's Africa region. A year later she moved to New York City to serve as chief of staff to founder and CEO Wendy Kopp. From 2019 to 2022 Williams was the organization's Global Director for girls' education. She came to Birmingham to lead Birmingham Promise as successor to Rachel Harmon in March 2022. Among her goals for the program is to boost engagement with younger students.

Williams' sister Marilyn teaches at Altamont School.

References

• Henderson, Russ (January 18, 2010) "From Eastern Shore to South Africa: Former Fairhope student follows her calling to teach at Oprah school." Mobile Press-Register
• Michaels, Ryan (August 24, 2022) "Global Scholar Samantha Williams and the Birmingham Promise." The Birmingham Times

External links

• Samantha Williams on Linkedin.com