Meet Khairi Williams

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Khairi Williams a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Khairi, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

A lot of my confidence comes from my faith and exercising that faith during some of my most challenging trials. It’s something I can lean on in times of doubt or just minimal understanding and going through those things then coming on the other side stronger makes me extremely confident. My self-esteem is something that I work on everyday. I battle with imposter syndrome and sometimes I second guess myself. However, when I let those anxieties subside for a second and reflect on all the wins (big or small) I get more self assured.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am a Brand Partnerships Consultant and multimedia producer. I partner with brands to secure advertising dollars, strategic partnerships, sponsorships, vendor opportunities and many more things to help grow their business. I also work with recording artists, podcasters and athletes on bespoke campaigns. This work excites me on a daily basis because at the root of it I get to do what I love which is align with really creative people. For example, getting recording artist Honey Bxby to sing the National Anthem at the 2024 HBCU Classic football game at Met Life Stadium was one of the coolest partnerships I ever worked on. I got to work on something that involved sports, music and Black culture which are all very important to me. I have a wide array of brands I partner with that sell everything from Lemonade to stationary and we find cool edgy ways to do it all. My background in production which included working for Spotify and ESPN really helped prepare me to step on do this on a high level.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Looking back I know that working with high level talent in media and music prepared me to work with a certain level of professional discretion. Telling the wrong information can make huge problems and sever relationships. Learning that advertising and sponsorship dollars are the engine that makes multimedia go truly helped me understand what to prioritize in this business and why collaboration is so important. The last quality is the most basic but most important of all and that is honesty & transparency. As the Tony Montana in Scarface said, “All you have in this world is your word, and you don’t break it for anyone”.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

The Tanning of America by hip hop marketing guru Steve Stoute really gave me a lot of understanding and preparation for this business. He offered real life examples of deals that he did or collaborated on and how much of his cultural competence played a part in the success. There was a passage in the book about a partnership his firm at the time did with GM and specifically Cadillac that was so eye opening. I won’t give it away in case anyone wants to read it themselves but it outlined how winning can come from just paying attention to what the PEOPLE want.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @khairi_williams