Professor Williams is the Academic Director for the Masters in Management Program (MIM) and teaches innovation, design-thinking, and leadership courses at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business where she earned the distinguished service award.  Prior to joining McDonough as a Teaching Professor in the Management Group, Professor Williams taught design thinking, leadership, organizational behavior, and team development courses at several business schools across the country.  Professor Williams was the Director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research (CLDR) Leadership Laboratories at Stanford University, Graduate School of Business and over her five-year tenure taught some of the Schools most popular electives and required leadership coursework.  Before joining Stanford’s faculty in 2006, Professor Williams was the Faculty Chair of the Leadership Effectiveness and Development program (LEAD) and a Clinical Associate Professor of Management at the University of Chicago, Booth Graduate School of Business.  A professor at Chicago GSB for six years, she taught in both the full-time and evening/weekend MBA programs and student evaluations consistently ranked her courses in the top tier at the School.  Most recently, Professor Williams was the F.M. Kirby Chair and Associate Vice President of Leadership Development for Wake Forest University and in this university-wide role taught courses in the areas of leadership, developing high performance teams, and design-thinking for the College, the Business School, and Medical School.  

Prior to teaching full-time, Professor Williams spent over 15 years in a series of executive and leadership development positions within Fortune 500 firms.  She designed and implemented leadership and management development programs for executives at firms in the United States, Europe and Asia.  She continues to consult with companies on developing leaders for senior management/C-Suite positions focusing on high-potential development and innovation. She has managed consulting projects and served as a consultant to many organizations including AARP, Alvarez & Marsal, Anheuser Busch, Baxter Healthcare, Capital One, Caremark, Ciena, Cisco, Dropbox, Deloitte, Del Monte, Disys, Embassy of Netherlands, Embassy of Norway, Harvard Business School, IG Wealth Management, InSchool, Qiyadat Global, Stanford University, the United Nations, and World Bank.