Terrie Williams

In October 2012, Williams was a featured speaker on mental health for World Mental Health Day.

Williams has written four books. Her first, The Personal Touch: What You Really Need to Succeed in Today's Fast-paced Business World. offered "an excellent primer on the basics of building and maintaining business relationships." The second book, Stay Strong: Simple Life Lessons for Teens formed the basis of Williams' non-profit Stay Strong Foundation. A Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and Harmony Through the Seven Living Virtues, offers advice on how to parlay core values into sound business practices. In 2008, she wrote Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting, which examines the role of unaddressed mental and emotional illness in spreading physical disease, substance abuse, violent crime and broken families among African Americans.

In March 2008, the Stay Strong Foundation launched the "Healing Starts With Us" campaign. In 2010 SSF collaborated with the Ad Council and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to introduce a campaign entitled "Share Ourselves: Healing Starts With Us" To date, the campaign has garnered $2.5 million in donated national advertising space and 11 million media impressions to significantly heighten awareness of the importance of mental and emotional health.

In 2005, Terrie Williams founded the Stay Strong Foundation (SSF)—now dissolved. SSF worked to support, educate and inspire America's youth through a series of programs and events that are designed to raise awareness of teen issues, promote the personal well-being of young people and enhance their educational and professional development. The foundation encouraged corporate and individual responsibility, developed educational resources for youth and youth organizations, provided and coordinated internships, set up mentoring opportunities, and facilitated visits by prominent individuals and business professionals to schools, libraries, youth organizations and group homes.

In 2003 Williams suffered a severe bout of depression. . She was forced to put her public relations career on hold as she recovered from the illness. In a June 2005 interview with Essence magazine, "Depression and the Superwoman," she spoke candidly about the effects of depression. She specifically drew attention to the reluctance of African-Americans to seek treatment due to social stigmas against mental illness and a variety of other culturally-specific issues.

After high school Terrie continued to further her education at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts where she received a BA in psychology and sociology. She received the Alumni Achievement Award in 1988 "The Alumni Achievement Award recognizes alumni who have made distinguished contributions to their professions or chosen fields of endeavor. It represents the highest form of university recognition bestowed exclusively on alumni." Upon completion of her bachelor's degree, she went to obtain a Master's of Science in Social Work at Columbia University.

In 1988 she founded The Terrie Williams Agency (TTWA), a public relations firm. Her first clients were Miles Davis and comedian Eddie Murphy. The firm provides employee training and motivational speaking for various corporations, community-based organizations and universities. Over the years, it has represented public figures such as Prince, Chris Rock, Janet Jackson, Louis Gossett Jr., the Reverend Al Sharpton, Sean "Diddy" Combs, MoNique, Ntozake Shange, and the late Johnnie L. Cochran. Corporate clients include HBO, Revlon, Time Warner, Essence magazine and Forest City Ratner Companies.

Her work in public relations has been referenced in textbooks, business guides, print editorials, social media, and pop culture. Since its creation in 1988, The Terrie Williams Agency has provided many of its services on a pro bono basis to underserved communities.

Terrie Williams (born May 12, 1954) is American public relations speaker, author, therapist, and philanthropist.