Lessons in Legacy, with Thomasina Williams

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Thomasina Williams. From watching the Voting Rights Act debated on TV as a five-year-old in the segregated South, to becoming the first Black girl to integrate her school, Thomasina Williams’ life has been shaped by powerful lessons about courage, opportunity, and money. In this episode, Thomasina shares how financial choices can be deeply connected to love, sacrifice and legacy.

Thomasina Willliams serves as a strategic thought partner, coach and consultant to financially successful families. She helps her clients do what their wealth alone cannot do: have difficult conversations, manage relationship tensions and navigate generational transitions.

As the first in-house “Family Dynamics Consultant” at one of the nation’s largest private banks, Thomasina guided ultra-high net worth families through the emotional undercurrents of generational transitions. One client described her as their “high beams lighting the pathway” through unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory. Thomasina’s work at the bank also included training wealth advisors to better understand family systems, so they could be even more valuable resources for their ultra-high net worth clients navigating family challenges.

Thomasina is a third-generation member of a family that lost its wealth during her parents’ generation. Learning about the shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves-in-three-generations proverb ignited her personal passion to course-correct for her own family and her professional mission to help other families avoid that fate.

Thomasina is the founder of Sankofa Legacy Advisors and convener of The FEW: Family Enterprise Women™, an emergent community for women in business-owning families.

Prior to her work with families, Thomasina was a nationally recognized philanthropy strategist at one of the largest private foundations in the country. Her first career was as an award-winning attorney.

During the time that one of her younger brothers was a member of her law firm, Thomasina gained personal experience with the complexities of working with family. That lived experience continues today in her role as the manager of her family’s small real estate development company.

Thomasina serves on the boards of the Purposeful Planning Institute, a community of multi-disciplinary professionals who work with financially successful families, and SIY Global, whose pioneering emotional intelligence trainings originated inside of Google.