photograph by jon w. sparks
Roquita Coleman-Williams called on interior designer Laquita Tate to create a home office that would be a “space that reflected both my personality and my work.” Artwork includes pieces by Monica Lewis, and Williams wears jewelry from IV by David.
For Roquita Coleman-Williams, a place to work is more than just a space. It’s a reflection of who she is as a sales and marketing leader.
Her passion is DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion — and she has worked closely with companies to make those practices happen. “It’s my belief that people can be taught to bring DEI to life in their profession,” she says, “by choosing what matters to you and to remain intentional about that in everything you do, not just your work.”
photograph by jon w. sparks
A mayoral appointment to the Memphis Area Transit Authority, an Inside Memphis Business leadership feature from 2016, and a Scratch the World travel map. The Thrive pillow was a gift from the Total Woman Summit where Williams was a speaker and the other pillows came from a women-owned shop in Africa.
Williams got into logistics during 10 years at UPS, where she refined her logistics expertise and mentoring. And then Canadian National Railway (CN) contacted her.
“I was a little-bitty person. Life meant that, for me to exist and to thrive, I had to be different and to look at things in a different way and to be able to challenge what’s considered the status quo. That’s where it starts and it amplified itself over time.”
“I was pretty skeptical,” she says. “Why would a railroad be interested in someone who sold trucking? But they had a vision for broadening their business and having someone look at the supply chain from end to end. And that’s when I got into international logistics, getting stuff from Asia, controlling how it navigates, which ports you use, and really digging into a company’s supply chains in a way that made my job very meaningful. But it also allowed many opportunities to do things in a way that was more inclusive.”
She worked for a Florida-based rail line last year, and this year has joined up as executive vice president of partnership development with KPower Global Logistics and partner company Phoenix Assurance Pharmaceutical, two big players in the coordination and movement of goods and products in and out of Memphis. Beyond that, she’s a speaker — including doing a TEDx talk — and has served on the boards of the Memphis Area Transit Authority, Memphis in May, and was the first Black president of the Memphis World Trade Club.
photograph by jon w. sparks
Items include a giraffe from Africa, a vase from Belize, driftwood from Thistle Farms in Nashville, more art by Monica Lewis, and candlestick holders from a boutique in Franklin, Tennessee
But having a dedicated office has eluded her until this year. The space is in her residence on Mud Island, a bedroom that was used for storage and is now an office. And she has transformed it with extra care and attention. Interior designer Laquita Tate (a local who Williams found on Instagram) handled the decor and it is chock full of local, global, and HUBZone items that remind Williams of the work she’s doing in DEI.
Some of her office’s elements come from Stock&Belle, IV by David, and artist Monica Lewis. And the space itself is well-lit, visually intriguing, balanced from any angle, and without even a suggestion of clutter. “I wanted a space that reflected both my personality and my work,” Williams says.
“Prior to the pandemic, I didn’t have an office because I was never home,” she says. “I worked at CN rail for 13 years, commuting to Toronto for seven of those years. And then I moved to another railroad in Jacksonville and was commuting back and forth there. So this is the first time in my professional career that I’ve been able to actually be in an office space.”
And since — thanks to COVID — it’s not in a commercial space, she was determined to make it “reflect who I am and what I stand for. So I’m very proud of this space and even more so finding a local person on Instagram, of all places, who was able to bring it to life for me.”
So why does she call herself hard-headed? She thinks it was from the very beginning when she weighed less than three pounds at birth. “I was born prematurely, so I was a little-bitty person. Life meant that, for me to exist and to thrive, I had to be different and to look at things in a different way and to be able to challenge what’s considered the status quo. That’s where it starts and it amplified itself over time.”
Seeing what needs to be done, and then going ahead and doing it is, she says, a challenge for any emerging leader. “I don’t care whose responsibility it is,” Williams says. “It may be procurement’s responsibility to have diversity and supplier relationships, but if I have an opportunity to make a relationship with the Black Business Association to facilitate that, or to make things move a little faster, that’s what I’m going to do. That’s what it comes to: seeing something that needs to be done and having the desire to do it, whether it’s your responsibility or not.”
