Williams, Thomasina H.

Thomasina H. Williams, the Principal of Sankofa Legacy Advisors, is a Strategic Thought Partner, Consultant and Coach to Enterprising Families. She specializes in guiding clients to be as intentional in developing their family’s human capital as they are in growing their financial capital. Clients who work with Williams develop the capacity to have sensitive conversations and make difficult decisions, while navigating the complexities that come with combining family and finances.

Williams was the first in-house consultant hired by one of the nation’s largest private banks, assuming a key leadership role in developing its service offering to help ultra-high net worth clients navigate generational wealth transitions. She has also served as a family business consultant with a leading consulting firm. She has published articles, presented to international audiences and conducted trainings addressing issues of family business, family dynamics and legacy family planning.

She worked for more than 20 years as a lawyer, during which time she became
a partner in one of Florida’s large full-service law firms in a record three years, and then co-founded the first Black-owned law firm in Miami with a primarily corporate clientele. Williams was recognized as one of the Top 150 Lawyers in South Florida, and the Miami-Dade County Commission named a day in her honor to acknowledge her pro bono public interest legal work. Thereafter, she relocated to New York, where she served for six years as a program officer at the nation’s second largest philanthropic foundation and invested more than $42 million in grants to strengthen non-profits and
the non-profit sector.

Williams earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Black Studies from Mount Holyoke College, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School. She has three years of post-graduate training in family systems theory, and holds certificates in Advanced Family Business Advising and Family Wealth Advising from the Family Firm Institute. She is also a member of the Purposeful Planning Institute, the Galliard Family Business Advisor Institute, and The Florida Bar.