Fatimah Gilliam

Fatimah Gilliam is an author, lawyer, consultant, public speaker, and entrepreneur. Her career combines expertise in the law, diversity, human capital, leadership, stakeholder engagement, and negotiations – helping organizations gain influence and strategic leverage, build coalitions and consensus, navigate polarizing issues and rebuild trust after crises, drive business and organizational goals, and advance workforce optimization.

She began her career as a corporate attorney on Wall Street at Cleary Gottlieb where she negotiated billion-dollar deals. At Citigroup, she leveraged her human capital and leadership acumen to oversee campus diversity recruiting for all Citi’s U.S. businesses. As the Head of Finance and Fundraising for North America for the Nobel Peace Prize-winning United Nations World Food Programme, she utilized her management and operational skills to oversee corporate partnerships and expand WFP’s presence and strategic relationships – including negotiating partnerships with The Hunger Games film franchise and rapper 50 Cent that resulted in providing over 20 million meals in Africa.

Since founding The Azara Group, which provides diversity and inclusion, leadership development, negotiation, and strategy consulting services, she has served as a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 corporations, senior executives leading billion-dollar businesses, and industry thought leaders. Her firm has advised clients on strategic initiatives, business objectives, talent management, and diversity strategies. This also includes guiding clients in connection with complex negotiations to gain influence, and recovering after workplace “incidents” or crises to repair key stakeholder relationships and team breakdown. Fatimah’s firm helps people and organizations “get what they want” and strategically play chess to reach their goals.

Her groundbreaking book "Race Rules: What Your Black Friend Won’t Tell You" is her patriotic contribution to America’s ongoing dialogue on race. Race Rules is a creative, innovative approach to explaining race in an eye-catching format – distilling complex material into an easily digestible, accessible reference guide for a broad audience with much-needed how-to advice. This book seeks to drive equity and behavioral change while helping people navigate polarizing issues and develop positive relationships across race. It’s received positive reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, along with endorsement from notable dignitaries, scholars, and academics like Darren Walker (President of the Ford Foundation), Angela Davis, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, former Mayor Naheed Nenshi (Calgary, Canada), actor Harry Lennix, racial-wealth-gap scholar William Darity of Duke University, and voting rights and federal Indian law scholar Patty Ferguson-Bohnee at Arizona State University’s law school.

As a thought leader, Fatimah has written articles and been interviewed: Television (e.g., CNBC’s Power Lunch; CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip; ABC 7’s Here and Now with Sandra Bookman); News outlets (e.g., Forbes; Fast Company; Newsweek; Business Insider; Yahoo! Finance; The Hill; HuffPo; CNBC); and Industry publications (e.g., Society for Human Resource Management or SHRM).

Fatimah graduated from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government with a Master in Public Policy (concentrating in International Trade and Finance; Conflict Resolution and Negotiation), Columbia Law School (participating in the Mediation Clinic; earning the Parker School Certificate of Achievement in International and Comparative Law), and Wellesley College (cum laude in Economics and French). She is a board member of the Columbia Law School Association, a board member and the Careers Committee Co-Chair of the New York Wellesley Alumnae Club, and a member of the Black Alumnae of Harvard Equity Initiative (BAHEI) and Co-Chair of BAHEI’s DEI Playbook Committee.

Fatimah has lived in Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe, been to over 40 countries, and speaks French. She has also completed three marathons and three Olympic-distance triathlons to support cancer research, volunteers as an attorney for Election Protection, and successfully lobbied for changes to the U.S. tax code.

Fatimah is a Black woman whose family has been in the United States for nearly 400 years and fought in every American war, including the American Revolution and Civil War. She’s also lived through military conflict, having been evacuated by the U.S. military when it invaded Grenada in the Caribbean.