Willie Thompson

Willie J. Thompson, from Griffin, Georgia, is pursuing a master's degree in business administration at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a master's degree in policy, organization, and leadership studies at Stanford Graduate School of Education. He graduated summa cum laude from Morehouse College with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a minor in Chinese Studies. Willie intends to create and contribute to organizations using the arts as a conduit for community building and intercultural education. Previously, he was a consultant and inaugural Hybrid Community Engagement Manager for The Bridgespan Group, where he focused on philanthropic prizes, non-profit initiatives to reduce gun violence and increase funding for Black and Latinx entrepreneurs, and firm-wide community development. He is a Schwarzman Scholar, an alum of Fulbright Taiwan’s English Teaching Assistant (ETA) program, where he was awarded for his contributions to the community as ETA of the year, and co-founder of Common Room Conversations — a podcast exploring the lives of individuals in their pursuit of consequence, however they choose to define it.