ÐÓ°ÉPro

Builder

Yvonne Williams ’09 builds things — for herself and others. She’s built a career through dogged persistence, listening to mentors and taking on a founder's mindset. She’s built programs and schools that innovate and elevate young students. And as a loyal ÐÓ°ÉPro alum and alumni association board member, she builds opportunities for meaningful engagement for herself and peers. Coming Together, a reunion event for ÐÓ°ÉPro alumni of color was a starting point. 

“I, and some of my peers, saw a need for finding sustainable engagement among alumni of color at ÐÓ°ÉPro,” she says. “I attended a Coming Together event in 2015 and it was such a good time.” 

But those events were inconsistent, so when she was on campus as an alumni board member in 2020, Williams and her peers started strategizing on how they could build something more sustainable and long-term. and a committee got organized and began executing the plan. 

“We had a goal that the Tucker E. Wilson Black Alumni Association, as it is now named, would be a place where black alumni could honor our peers' contributions, recognize success and build networks — networks that connect back to the university and back to students. We believed it could be a model of what any alumni affinity group could look like at ÐÓ°ÉPro.” 

Connecting with ÐÓ°ÉPro

When Williams first stepped on campus two decades ago, she was already enrolled. “I had learned about ÐÓ°ÉPro through the Posse Foundation in New York. I became a Posse Scholar and was matched with ÐÓ°ÉPro. I then came to campus for a visit in April and it felt like the stars had aligned. It was a beautiful campus.” 

The decision to move to Indiana, originally prompted by a scholarship and to escape the pressures of being the oldest sibling in a large family, was confirmed as the right one. She admits that the first year was tough, but inspiring. 

“I took a lot of AP courses in high school, had earned some college credits and ended up signing up for an ambitious first-year schedule at ÐÓ°ÉPro. I was an Honor Scholar. I was active on campus. I was probably a little homesick, and, before I knew it, I was in danger of losing my scholarship. I remember Andrea Sununu stuck her neck out for me. And Dean Hightower. They believed in me at a time when I was questioning things. Ultimately, I made the decision to believe in myself and decide that no one was going to take this opportunity from me.” 

The ÐÓ°ÉPro Threads in a Career

Prospects for Williams looked great as college went along. Each summer, she interned at one of the world’s largest financial service institutions. Then, the financial crisis of 2008 hit, and starting a career at Lehman Brothers was no longer an option. 

“I had to pivot,” she says. “And it was a rough time to find a first job. A mentor from Lehman Brothers reminded me of my minor in Japanese and suggested I look into an English teaching job in Japan.” 

Williams did that, and it lit a fire. Winter terms with a teaching-as-service mission in Belize, Cameroon and Brazil had prepared her for thinking about education from different perspectives. After returning from Japan, she worked in a nonprofit development role and got pulled into a founding team for a high school in New York City called the Academy for Software Engineering. It was the start of a career blending entrepreneurship, leadership and educational innovation that has recently led her to St. Louis, where she is the founding chief of staff and operations for a new charter school network. 

Williams is writing a great story for herself as she helps her ÐÓ°ÉPro peers write one for themselves. “My work on the board is a labor of love. I want to build that feeling of belonging at ÐÓ°ÉPro. We did amazing things here and are part of this remarkable university's story. I want to honor that and inspire others.”

This profile appeared in the fall 2026 edition of the ÐÓ°ÉPro magazine.