Influential Woman · Publishing
Cristine Williams
Editor-in-Chief and Author, Synergy Biblio Publishers
Phoenix, AZ 85016
Her Story
About Cristine
My professional journey has been defined by my ability to be a resource and truly listen to people. I spent over 12 years in finance, working my way from front desk customer service at a printing company to a finance analyst role at Breakthrough Beverage. At that printing company, they initially told me not to waste my time organizing their plan storage, but then they gave me an entire room to organize for architects and contractors - and when I left, they had to hire three people to replace me. Throughout my career, people would reach out to me from different departments and even different offices because they knew I could help them find what they needed, whether it was connecting a California restaurant owner to the right alcohol ordering contact or tracking down a contract from years ago. I've always been customer service oriented and driven by teamwork and inclusion. Now I'm taking everything I've learned about listening and serving others into my new role with Synergy Biblio, where I'm working on the First Poem Published Series. This project is all about encouraging people to share their love poems and get published in an anthology, keeping the human voice alive in the age of AI. I'm also an author of children's books, including my series about my sister and me - 'Summer in the Meadows,' 'Summer in the Sky,' and 'Summer in the Desert' - and I just completed my first children's coloring book of baby animals. My goal is to help people get their stories out there and create their legacy.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Cristine
01What do you attribute your success to?
I truly attribute my success to learning the art of being a resource and really listening to my customers and colleagues. I'm very customer service oriented, and I've found that people come to me for help because they know I'll take the time to understand what they need and connect them with the right person or solution, even if it's not directly my responsibility. I don't mind researching to find out how to get people what they need in order to achieve team success. I think I've strived for teamwork and being part of something inclusive, being the best that I could do to help others. Whether it was at the printing company where they had to hire three people to replace me, or at Breakthrough Beverage where people from different offices would reach out because they knew I could help them, it's always been about serving others and being a part of something that could benefit the whole team.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Right now, in this day and age, things are getting expensive, but we don't want to let that stop people's creative side. We want to be able to keep people's creative side open during all these things that are going on in our world right now. We want to remind people that we want to hear their voice and what their heart says, because people need that. I am totally about learning and doing things with AI, but we need to keep our human aspect as well. Part of what we're trying to do is engage people to say, hey, I want to read your poem, I want to review it, I would love to be able to put it into our book of anthology. We're trying to encourage people to share what comes from their heart, and we've created different price tiers so that even on the lower tier, people can be included in the book and have their name indexed. It's about getting people excited to share their legacy, maybe a love story poem they have in a drawer somewhere or in a box in the attic - let's get it out there, it's your legacy, why not?
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