For four years Maxine Williams, global director of diversity for Facebook, has worked with her team to develop strategies to attract and support underrepresented people at the social media giant, which reaches a global community of more than 2 billion people.

Her team works toward attracting and supporting underrepresented people and aims to increase the cognitive diversity—different ways of thinking based on people having different backgrounds, experiences, and information—of all teams across Facebook. Prior to joining Facebook, Williams served as director of diversity for a global law firm. She graduated from Yale University and received a law degree with first class honors from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She has worked as an attorney in criminal, civil, and industrial courts in both her native Trinidad and in the United Kingdom, at the Privy Council. She has worked with multiple international organizations on development and human rights issues, and has had a parallel career as a broadcast journalist and on-air presenter. Williams is a director on the board of the Massy Group of Companies.

The Race & Pedagogy Institute and African American Studies Program at University of Puget Sound invite the public to a free event with Maxine Williams, A Conversation on Diversity and the Tech Industry, 11 a.m.–12 noon on Wednesday, Dec. 13, in Wheelock Student Center’s Rasmussen Rotunda. The Rhodes Scholar, lawyer, broadcast journalist, and Facebook director will give a talk and take questions from the audience. Everyone is welcome.

A Conversation on Diversity and the Tech Industry
With an audience Q&A
Wednesday, Dec. 13, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon
Rasmussen Rotunda, Wheelock Student Center
University of Puget Sound, Tacoma

                          – University of Puget Sound