Dr. Cheryl E. Williams

Cheryl Williams, PhD, is a professor in the School of Arts and Sciences at Concordia University Irvine, where she teaches communication courses including intercultural communications, mass media, theory, and principles of interviewing. Additionally, she teaches in the School of Business, Diversity in Organizations, and occasionally in the MBA program. Dr. Williams also serves as the vice president for International and Cultural Relations and is a member of the Executive Council.

In her professional work, she is highly respected as a subject matter expert on topics of global workforce inclusion, diversity matters, cultural competency and leadership across boundaries. As a former senior organizational development and human resources professional, she has consistently demonstrated successful hands-on management experience with domestic and international employee groups, and is often consulted by major organizations. Prior to going into academe, Cheryl spent over 25 years in corporate leadership roles in the entertainment and high technology industries where she managed employee education and training, recruitment, staffing, internal communications, employee relations, and community relations.

Cheryl has traveled to and worked in over 50 countries spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and North America.
As an inclusion and diversity specialist, she has designed, developed, and delivered over 3,000 learning programs to multinational audiences and has lectured on intercultural/inclusion/diversity and business management topics at institutions such as ESLSCA in Paris, France, University of Suriname in South America, and at numerous professional conferences including: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) International Conference, American Anthropological Association, SIETAR, World Communication Association, The Conference Board, Association of Talent and Development (formerly (ASTD), and the Athens Management Institute, to name a few. She is also frequently tapped by organizations for online course design and delivery and enjoys working with all training delivery systems that are best for the audience.

Recently Cheryl has been conducting training programs in Switzerland, Mexico, France, India, China, the U.K., and Israel to C-level executives, directors, and front-line personnel about global cultural management and accelerating inclusion across diverse characteristics and boundaries.

As a practicing cultural anthropologist, specializing in D&I dynamics, she uses grounded thought leadership frames as her benchmark for excellence. Her current research in curiosity, intersectionality, and privilege is considered by many as cutting edge.

Cheryl received her PhD in intercultural/international communications from Florida State University (Tallahassee, Fla.), and an MS and BA in speech communications from Purdue University (West Lafayette, Ind.). She resides in Costa Mesa, Calif.