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Featuring Keynote Speaker
Terrie
M. Williams
Founder and President, The Stay Strong
Foundation, Inspirational Author And
Mental Health Advocate
Terrie is a social worker by training
who became a successful public relations
pro by her own design, inscribed her
prominence as an author of the
successful business and inspirational
story, and has now emerged as an
advocate for youth and those who battle
depression.
 The
multi-chaptered story of Terrie Williams
is one of phenomenal success and
encouragement. She launched The Terrie
Williams Agency in 1988—a company that
would become one of the country’s most
successful public relations and
communications firms—and through the
years has handled the biggest names in
entertainment, sports, business, and
politics from Miles Davis, Eddie Murphy
and Johnnie L. Cochran to Essence
Communications Partners, HBO and Time
Warner.
Terrie is the author of three successful
books: the business bestseller The
Personal Touch: What You Really Need to
Succeed in Today’s Fast-Paced Business
World; the inspirational A
Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and
Harmony through the Seven Living Virtues;
and Stay Strong: Simple Life Lessons
for Teens, the basis for the 2001
launch of The Stay Strong Foundation, a
national non-profit designed to educate
and encourage American youth.
Terrie’s current work, a book entitled
Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re
Not Hurting, will be published by
Scribner in January 2008 and will tell
the untold story of depression among
African-Americans as well as Terrie’s
tale of her own chronic and crippling
depression—a revealing narrative she
shared in the June 2005 issue of
ESSENCE magazine.
As
guest host for “The Down & Up Show” on
Depressionisreal.org podcast, Terrie
has interviewed guests such as Andrew
Solomon, author of the critically
acclaimed, Noonday Demon former
New Jersey First Lady and depression
survivor Mary Jo Codey; Jerry Reed,
executive director of the SPAN-USA—the
Suicide Prevention Action Network; and
Dr. Yoasif Rofa, an Iraqi psychiatrist
treating depression in his homeland.
Today Terrie works tirelessly to reach
out to individuals who have suffered or
are now suffering—from the struggling
high school student, to the successful
executive who puts forth the daily
“mask”, to the former gang member, the
incarcerated and those who served time
but were later proven innocent. She is a
woman on fire, a woman on a mission to
help others enter (and re-enter) society
as productive and contributing members
of their community.
Terrie’s accomplishments have been
chronicled in numerous publications as
Adweek, Jet Magazine, The Boston
Globe, New York Daily News,
Washington Post, and Crain’s New
York Business. She is a highly
sought-after speaker and has shared her
unique talent with many Fortune 500
companies and diverse organizations,
from New York University to the National
Hockey League. She and her Agency have
been featured as case studies in public
relations seminars, college texts,
industry newsletters, and novels. Her
drive to “save the world” leads her and
the efforts of The Stay Strong
Foundation to urge corporate and
individual responsibility, and to offer
educational and leadership workshops,
internships, and mentoring opportunities
for youth.
Terrie’s honors include The Institute
for the Advancement of Multicultural &
Minority Medicine’s 2006 Eagle Fly Free
Award for her work as a depression
survivor and her efforts to bring
widespread attention to the topic. She
has also received The New York Women in
Communications Matrix Award in Public
Relations—the first woman of color to
receive this award in the award’s
70-year history, the PRSA New York
Chapter’s Phillip Dorf Mentoring Award,
and The Citizen’s Committee for New York
Marietta Tree Award for Public Service.
In 1996 she was the first person of
color honored with the Vernon C. Schranz
Distinguished Lectureship at Ball State
University, and in 1998 she donated her
papers to the Howard University
Moorland-Springarn Research Center
Archives. Terrie has a B. A. (cum
laude) in Psychology and Sociology
from Brandeis University, and an M.S. in
Social Work from Columbia University.
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