Angela Williams

Angela Williams comes to us from the “I Have a Dream” Foundation®, New York (IHADNY) where, as the Executive Director she envisioned a world where every youth has equal access to education and career opportunities and is able to live the American Dream. Angela formerly the Chief Program Officer at Dress for Success Worldwide® set overarching strategies to strengthen affiliate capacity, increase client outcomes, ideate new programs, heighten brand visibility, and activate diverse fundraising opportunities.

Angela has committed her professional body of work to empowering individuals to ignite their innate potential and unlock their inner greatness so that they can move from poverty to prosperity, thrive, and achieve self-defined success. Angela is a change agent committed to creating ecosystems of sustainable learning and providing access to opportunities in fragile communities to promote social mobility and economic independence. Angela has a genuine passion for the mission of Common Denominator and strongly believes that when we invest in young people, they will invest in themselves and in the next generation.

Angela’s unparalleled commitment for this work can be traced back to her early life. She grew up in public housing in the Bronx with her mother, then a teacher working in a Second Opportunity High School. Her mother paved the way forward by sacrificing everything to ensure the future success of her daughter. Angela saw first-hand the choices her mother had to make to ensure that her daughter had the math tutor she needed to excel in her studies. The significant impact that Angela’s mother’s support had on her life informed her professional choice to pursue opportunity equity for those who did not have the advantages that her mother worked so hard to provide. Angela’s real-life experiences, coupled with her undergraduate and graduate studies, provided her with opportunities to learn about the value of commitment to education, the benefits of coaching and mentorship, and the importance of the lifelong relationships that are forged in academic environments.

Angela brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to lead us through an exciting time of growth and expansion. During her time at IHADNY she diversified their funding structure and increased their annual revenue from 2.4M to 3.1M, strengthened the infrastructure, built capacity, executed first-in-class fundraisers, and designed programs that would seek to bridge the education equity and opportunity gaps to ensure the continued success of its students. At Dress for Success Worldwide, she grew and developed the program team from a department of one to a team of 21, with staffing located in five national offices. She implemented a new program model which generated 20 scalable, meaningful, and fundable signature programs implemented in 150 global affiliates, driving a 900% rate of program expansion. In each of her leadership roles Angela has demonstrated unparalleled commitment to empowering women, families, and youth to rise above their circumstances and achieve their education goals, employment stability, and economic independence.

There is a direct connection between her work in ensuring education equity for youth in need from underserved communities and our mission. Angela has dedicated her life to breaking down barriers that might impede individuals from attaining success by helping to pave the way forward for others and creating pathways towards opportunity. Her purpose has always been to drive change, at both the individual and societal levels. She has addressed the issue of social and economic inequity from many different vantage points. With this new role she is thrilled to tackle it head on, ensuring that middle school students learn to love math, build self-confidence and self-efficacy through tutoring and mentorship, and that tutors and coaches are provided with life-changing experiences through their support of our mission.

A respected voice in the workforce development and recreation fields, Angela has served as a contributor for various thought leadership conferences including the Aspen Institute and the Clinton Global Initiative and is also a nationwide presenter.

Angela holds a BS and MSEd, Education from Lehman College in the Bronx where she was born and raised.