Heidi Williams

Don’t sleep on the legend that is Heidi Williams, she’s the real deal in tech and startups. This woman has been crushing it for over 20 years, no joke. She started out doing her thing at big names like Adobe, Macromedia, and then jumped into the startup world with companies like Dreamers & Doers, PaymentWorks, and Box. She’s been all about building stuff that actually makes a difference, especially around diversity and inclusion.

Heidi’s current gig? Head of B2B & Platform Engineering at Grammarly. Yeah, she’s steering the ship on some of the coolest tech in the language space right now. But what really sets her apart is her passion for lifting women in tech. She founded WEST Diversity & Inclusion, a community that’s all about mentorship and helping women level up in this industry that’s still kinda boys’ club. Plus, she co-founded tEQuitable, a platform fighting workplace bias, discrimination, and harassment, basically trying to make workplaces safer and fairer for everyone.

Her process tells you a lot about her drive. She’s someone who’s not just in tech to build cool stuff but to shake up the status quo. She’s all about justice, equity, and pushing for real change. Her background, a CS degree from Brown, attending Stanford’s Exec Institute, holding three patents, shows she’s seriously smart and legit. But beyond that, she’s a connector, a mentor, and a leader who’s always looking to give back. She’s a founding member of Dreamers & Doers, a network for women entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors, proving she’s big on community and collaboration.

What’s crazy is, she’s been in the game long enough to see the bullshit, call it out, and then build solutions that actually matter. Her work on platforms like Dreamweaver and Flex at Adobe shows she’s been a pioneer in the dev world, but her focus now is on making tech more inclusive and just. She’s got patents, she’s advising orgs like CaregivingHQ, and she’s speaking out on issues that matter.

Bottom line? Heidi Williams is a powerhouse who’s been shaping the tech scene for decades, not just by building products but by fighting for a better, fairer industry. She’s proof that you can do well and do good at the same time. No cap.