Williams, Bisa, 1954-

<p>Ambassador Bisa Williams (ret) is co-Founder and Managing Director of Williams Strategy Advisors, LLC (WSA), a problem-solving, business and foreign affairs advisory consulting firm. For the last 2 years, she has also led The Carter Center’s effort as Independent Observer of implementation of the Peace Agreement in Mali. Before forming WSA, Ambassador Williams was a career member of the Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State. During her 30+ years in the Foreign Service, she served tours in Guinea (Conakry), Panama, Mauritius, France, the US Mission to the UN (NY), Washington, DC, including two years at the National Security Council of The White House, and Niger. As Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Ambassador Williams led the US delegation to talks in Havana, Cuba, breaking a seven year hiatus of high level direct discussions. Her accomplishments were recognized in LeoGrande/Kornbluh book Back Channel to Cuba. She was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010 as Ambassador to Niger where she served for 3 years. Following her tour as Ambassador, she was named Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of African Affairs, supporting US economic policy goals in sub-Saharan Africa and bilateral policy in the West Africa region. Ambassador Williams retired from the Foreign Service in 2015. She speaks French, Spanish, and Portuguese and is the recipient of numerous Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards from the Department of State. She holds a Master of Science degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College of the National Defense University in Washington, DC and a Master of Arts degree in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude from Yale.</p>

<p>Bisa Williams (born 1954) is the former Ambassador from the United States of America to the Republic of Niger in Niamey. She assumed the post on October 29, 2010. She left her post in 2013.</p>

<p>Bisa Williams was born in Trenton, New Jersey and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Her father Dr. Paul T. Williams was a general surgeon while her mother Eloise Owens Williams was a social worker and later a professor of Social Work at the College of New Jersey. Her sister, Ntozake Shange, was a playwright best known for writing the Broadway play "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf". Her other sister, Ifa Bayeza, is also a playwright, who co-wrote the multi-generational novel, Some Sing, Some Cry, with her sister Shange. She received as Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale College, where she graduated in 1976 cum laude with honors distinctions in Black Literature of the Americas. She later received a Master of Arts degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College, and a second MA from the University of California, Los Angeles in comparative literature.</p>

<p?Bisa Williams is a career foreign service officer, having joined the Foreign Service in 1984. Her previous overseas postings include Port Louis, Mauritius; Paris, France and Panama City, Panama. Her first overseas assignment was in Port Louis, Mauritius, a mission that also covers Seychelles and Comoros, where she served as Deputy Chief of Mission under Ambassador John Price.</p>

<p>Prior to being assigned to Niamey, Bisa Williams, then U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, participated in a September 2009 six-day trip to Cuba in an attempt to improve bilateral relations. During the trip she met with Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodríguez Barrera, worked on restoring direct mail service between the two countries, and toured parts of western Cuba hit by Hurricane Ike. She also invited dissidents to a reception at the United States Interests Section in Havana.</p>

<p>Her nomination to be United States Ambassador to Niger was sent to the United States Senate on November 30, 2009, and she assumed the post in Niamey eleven months later, on October 29, 2010. She left her post in 2013.</p>

<p>Williams is currently Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.</p>

<p>Bisa Williams (1954–)<br>
Career Foreign Service Officer<br>
State of Residence: New Jersey</p>

<p>Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Niger)<br>
Appointed: August 9, 2010<br>
Presentation of Credentials: October 29, 2010<br>
Termination of Mission: Left post on September 13, 2013</p>

<p>Ambassador Bisa Williams was a career member of the Foreign Service of the United States Department of State. She was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2010 to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Niger. After Senate confirmation, she headed the U.S. Embassy in Niamey, Niger from 2010 to 2013.</p>

<p>Williams was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1954. Her father Dr. Paul T. Williams was a surgeon while her mother Eloise Owens Williams was a professor of Social Work at the College of New Jersey. Williams’s sister Ntozake Shange is known for writing her award winning 1976 Broadway play, “for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf.” Williams’s other sister, Ifa Bayeza, who is also a playwright, wrote a multi-generational novel, Some Sing, Some Cry, with Shange in 2010.</p>

<p>Williams earned a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude from Yale University in Connecticut in 1976. She later earned master’s degrees from both the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.</p>

<p>Williams joined the U.S Foreign Service in 1984. Her first overseas assignment was a general services officer at the U.S. Embassy in Conakry, Guinea (1984-1986). She then served as a political officer at the embassy in Panama City, Panama (1986-1988). Williams spent a year at the State Department in Washington, D.C. as a country officer for the countries of Cape Verde, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. She later returned to Panama for two years as a political officer following the U.S. overthrow of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. From 1991 to 1992 she was a special assistant to the coordinator of assistance to the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union.</p>

<p>Williams worked as a political and economic officer for the U.S. mission at the United Nations in New York from 1993 to 1997. Between 1997 and 1998 she was a special assistant to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She also served briefly the first secretary for African Affairs at the U.S. embassy in Paris, France. From July 2001 to April 2004 Williams held the position of deputy chief of mission in Port Louis, Mauritius. She later served as the director for international organizations at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush White House from 2005 to 2007.</p>

<p>In 2008 Williams became the coordinator for Cuba Affairs at the U.S. State Department and then later served as acting deputy assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs. She visited Cuba for six days in September 2009 during which she made headlines for meeting with dissidents opposed to Castro-led socialist regime that had controlled the country since 1959.</p>

<p>Ambassador Williams has received five Superior Honor and four Meritorious Honor Awards. She is proficient in the French, Portuguese, and Spanish languages.</p>