Mirrors: Shelby Williams, Communications & Marketing Manager
The AdaMarie Mirrors reflect back to us the many roads (often winding, never smooth) to success! Real stories to see yourself reflected. At first, you’ll see Shelby in this mirror, but eventually, we hope you’ll see yourself.
Welcome, Shelby Williams!
Shelby Williams spent years trying to choose between two versions of herself. The creative one and the technical one, and it turns out she never had to.
In this AdaMarie Mirror, Shelby reflects on what it took to stop performing a version of ambition that was never hers, and what happened when she finally leaned into the work that gave her energy instead. Burnout led her out of tech and into nonprofit strategy, where she discovered that "strategy" means something different everywhere you go and that technology could be a tool in her creative work rather than the whole point.
Now Marketing and Communications Manager at Zora's House and the founder of Strategy by Shelby, she describes herself as the water cycle: moving through many different forms while creating equilibrium and regeneration along the way.
If you have ever felt boxed in by the career paths people expected you to want, Shelby's story is a reminder that the through line was there the whole time. You just have to be willing to see it.
Major & Minor – If you went to college!: Computer Information Systems at Howard University School of Business
Field of Work: Marketing and Communications
Expertise In: Brand and Creative Strategy
Current Company: Zora's House, Strategy by Shelby
Job Title: Marketing & Communications Manager, Lead Strategist
One-liner about what you’re working on: Helping women+ of color feel understood through intentional brand-building and communications
Currently geeking out over: Too many Substack blogs to name, but most recently one called Cashmere & Collard Greens that is everything!
STEM Hero: Annie Malone, the haircare OG and one of the first Black millionaires in the United States
Tell us about your professional journey – how did you get where you are now?
Growing up, I bounced between arts and creative pursuits and science and engineering side projects, never quite sure which direction to commit to. It wasn't until I essentially gave up on my tech industry dreams that I realized I could build a career balancing both, using technology as a tool to unlock creative frontiers in marketing, communications, and strategy.
I started as a nervous marketing major at Howard, feeling like a fish out of water among the extroverted future CMOs and CCOs in my class. Sophomore year, a mentor had me list every company I thought would be cool to work for after graduation, and I was surprised to find they were all tech companies. That pushed me to learn the technical side of things: how developers approached each platform and how engineers crafted user experiences.
By senior year, I'd turned a Brand Strategy internship at Twitter into a longer contract, and by graduation I had a full-time offer to move to Chicago as a Brand Planner. Even then, I felt pressure to keep my coding skills sharp, convinced I'd eventually need them to become a Product Manager or Technologist. Whether it was early-career jitters, confusion, or the girlboss era talking, I didn't feel like it was enough to just be a great strategist who happened to study information systems.
It took about five years, plus an untimely pandemic, to realize my ambitions didn't need to live in tech alone, and that being a lightweight technologist could actually make me a better marketer, strategist, and creative if I let myself lean into the work that energized me. Burned out from the fast pace of tech, I pivoted to nonprofit strategic planning, which taught me that "strategy" means something different at every company. From there I moved through strategic planning for nonprofits and independent schools, customer experience strategy built on data-driven journey maps, and creative strategy rooted in cultural and consumer truths behind brand campaigns.
Today, I'm the Marketing and Communications Manager at Zora's House, a Central Ohio nonprofit, and a freelance brand and creative strategist, wearing many creative hats with technology as the feather in all of them.
We’re also curious to know your personal story and upbringing. What has made you “you”?
I think being able to see creativity as a throughline in my career, whether I was directly leveraging the skills I learned while studying info systems or just crafting brand strategies, has made my journey unique. I am so grateful for the patience of the people who helped to guide me in my professional journey as I evolved from a scrappy, unregulated twenty-something to where I am today.
We know that real life isn’t a smooth and linear journey. What was your initiating moment that led you to your calling - can you tell us about that moment, what helped you moved forward, what you learned/discovered?
After monumentally crashing out during my Saturn return (I’m not a big astrology person, but I shudder as I recall this moment), I realized that tech might not have been right for me at that exact moment of my life.
I found myself yearning to do work that really helped people, finding ways to leverage brands to drive meaningful positive change in people’s lives. That began my years-long pivot into nonprofit strategy, which I’m glad to say really gives me energy through my work today.
What helped me was being able to look in the mirror and really evaluate who I wanted to be and the relationship I wanted to have with my work. It was also helpful to connect with friends and family who helped me stay grounded during the tumultuous time.
You’re a working person in a performance-driven industry. Where do you find balance?
I make sure I have at least two days a week during which I can just veg out and do what I want— sometimes that involves grabbing a coffee at a local shop, having a nice solo lunch, and maybe even catching a movie, and sometimes it involves lounging around with my cats in my pjs and catching up on Real Housewives.
Let your geek flag fly! If you were a scientific phenomenon, what would you be?
If I were a scientific phenomenon, I would be the water cycle, navigating seasons of existence in so many different forms, yet creating a sense of equilibrium and regeneration throughout!
We’d love to feature your work! How can we spread the word about what you’re doing?
My main role is as the Marketing and Communications Manager at a Central Ohio-based nonprofit called Zora’s House. We provide women+ of color and gender expansive people of color with the space, skills, and strategic connections they need to thrive personally and professionally.
I also serve as a Brand Marketing Consultant at Purple Haus, a creative intelligence and strategic communications consultancy that partners with inspiring leaders to realize their greatest impact and influence.
A few years ago, I got the itch to reconnect with my status as a former theater nerd, so I got involved with a local company called Available Light Theatre as a Board Member. My time supporting their rarely produced and good humored shows has been incredible and I also get great energy from supporting their marketing efforts.
Finally, I started my own Brand and Creative Strategy biz, Strategy by Shelby, because I love having the chance to engage different organizations of all sizes in brand building efforts.
Do you have a favorite motivational quote or song?:
So much of strategy involves being inquisitive and asking the right questions. That’s why songs about asking questions, like “21 Questions” by 50 Cent, somehow always end up back on my repeat playlists!
Any final advice for early-career STEM professionals?
No career path is linear and your journey in STEM doesn’t have to be either. Don’t feel boxed in by the types of careers you might see folks in your course of study gravitating towards. Someone once told me to do what gives me energy and I live by that advice to this day!
