(AllHipHop Features) Bari A. Williams is Head of Business Operations Management, North America at StubHub as of January 2017. In this role, she is responsible for business planning and operations, including cross-functional work with Product, Marketing, Strategy, Partnerships, Customer Service, Trust and Safety to manage and oversee technical metrics, product innovation, key strategic partnerships and drive P&L results across the company.
Prior to StubHub, Ms. Williams was Lead Counsel for the Global Infrastructure, Development, and Operations (“Inbound”) Commercial Legal team at Facebook. In this role, she drafted and negotiated contracts supporting Facebook’s internet.org connectivity efforts, building aircrafts, satellites, and lasers, along with purchasing and procurement to keep the company running – from software and hardware for the development of new products for users, including marketing messenger bots for Tommy Hilfiger during Fashion Week, to deals for supplies and equipment needed to take care of Facebook employees worldwide. Additionally, she also successfully took on the passion project of developing strategy and implementing the launch Facebook’s Supplier Diversity Program, announced at White House Demo Day in 2015, and officially launched at NMSDC in October 2016. She also served on Facebook’s Black Employee Resource Group leadership team, which recently had its successful inaugural “Black Leadership Day” event.
Prior to joining Facebook, Ms. Williams was an attorney at CSAA Insurance Exchange, formerly known as AAA Insurance, where her work focused on commercial contracts, primarily in the IT space, and privacy.
Ms. Williams has been a featured speaker on panels at festivals and events, and has been featured on TheRoot.com, and in Black Enterprise and Essence magazines. She is a 2015 recipient of the National Bar Association’s “40 Under 40” award, recognizing young attorneys excelling in achievement, innovation, vision, leadership and legal community involvement in their careers, as well as their “Excellence in Legal Innovation” award, and a 2015 recipient of the Digital Diversity Network’s “Top 40 Under 40: Tech Diversity” award.
Ms. Williams shares with AllHipHop some great methods to mainting the madness of not only being a female executive but balancing that with being a wife and mother. Take a look.
AllHipHop: Please, explain what your job entails:
Bari Williams: I’m responsible for business planning and operations, including cross-functional work with Product, Marketing, Strategy, Partnerships, Customer Service, Trust and Safety to manage and oversee technical metrics, product innovation, key strategic partnerships and drive P&L (profits and loss) results across the company.
AllHipHop: What’s the most enjoyable part of the job and your duties:
Bari Williams: Figuring out ways to solve problems. It’s fun to analyze something and see how it works, and then determine how and why it could be better, and then putting the pieces together to actually make it better. I love driving toward efficiency.
AllHipHop: What is the hardest part: Bari Williams: Figuring out ways to solve problems. It’s a blessing and a curse. It can be frustrating when you know how to solve a problem, and you don’t have the necessary resources to fix it.
AllHipHop: Can you describe a moment of adversity personally and in your career?
Bari Williams: I’m a creature of routine and comfort, and I’m very Type A. I’ve been called a control freak. So, it’s hard for me to leave a situation in which I’ve become comfortable, know how to easily navigate the terrain, am great at the work, and good will has already been acquired in the company. But I know that growth is in the space outside of your comfort zone, and that’s always the hardest step for me to take… to leave the familiar to tackle the unknown.
AllHipHop: What keeps you from giving up?
Bari Williams: I remind myself that my dad’s parents were sharecroppers with elementary school educations. They didn’t move their family from Mississippi to California and grind it out to get some of their kids to college for me to get discouraged and give up, even when I’m not getting what I deserve. Just work harder to prove I’m worth what I’m asking for.
AllHipHop: Who inspired you to become a leader or boss?
Bari Williams: My mother. She’s always been the boss of our home and was such an exceptional teacher that people still stop me on the street and ask about her. To see that kind of impact you can have on someone’s life resonated with me. I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher, at least not in that way, but I wanted to have that kind of impact and legacy.
AllHipHop: How do you balance work and personal life?
Bari Williams: Three things: (1) I wake up early in the morning, to allow time to do something I want to do undisturbed. I’m the only early riser in my house, so it’s the only time no one is looking for me; (2) I organize my life on a shared calendar with my husband, and it includes our kid’s activities, and; (3) I have insomnia, which is good and bad. I try to use it for good.
AllHipHop: What do you like to do for fun?
Bari Williams: Four things: (1) I clear my DVR; (2) read; (3) watch or attend sporting events and concerts, and; (4) sleep. Yes, sleep can be fun when you’re an insomniac.
AllHipHop: Please provide what it means to you to be a powerful and influential woman in the urban music and hip-hop industry.
Bari Williams: It’s providing good experiences for the customers, fans, and our partners/artists, and providing more opportunity for those that look like me in the tech and entertainment space.
AllHipHop: Final Thoughts or words of advice?
Bari Williams: To get something you’ve never had, you’ll have to do something you’ve never done.