A look into Tiffany Williams’ ‘big role’ in Stephen Curry’s off-court world

SAN FRANCISCO – Sitting in her glass enclosed office at Thirty Ink headquarters, Tiffany Williams tried to recall a time when Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry didn’t agree with a decision she made on his behalf. With a smile and a chuckle, the Thirty Ink chief operating officer remembered one time the Warriors star balked.

“The key is knowing what his priorities are,” Williams told Andscape. “We’ve worked together long enough at this point where I know what he is going to say. So, I will send him a note saying, ‘I said no about this, and this is why.’ There has only been one time where he told me, ‘Actually, I do want to do that and let’s just figure out how to make it work.’

“It was when I said no to when he got an exemption to play in a pro golf tournament in Hayward. He was literally upstairs when I sent the note and he said, ‘No, wait! I want to do that!’ He had something else he had to do, but a partner moved it for him. Other than that…”

Said Curry to Andscape: “It’s a feel and trust over the last 10 years. She filters through things at the earliest point to save work, not create work. Have integrity for our mission whether it interests me or is exciting. We have a running joke about the golf tournament. I remember that. But what is even funnier is if she needs an emergency answer for something, she will put something in the e-mail header or text for a quicker response.”

Curry has built a legacy in the Bay Area as the star of the Warriors and one of the faces of the league with four NBA championships, two Most Valuable Player awards and one NBA Finals MVP. The 11-time All-Star will be the face of NBA All-Star Weekend as the All-Star Game will take place at Chase Center, the current home of the Warriors, while other events will take place at Oracle Arena, their former home eight miles away in Oakland.

Curry is more than just a Warriors icon in the Bay Area and abroad. The 16-year NBA veteran and his wife, Ayesha, are aiding countless public-school kids in Oakland with their healthy food, physical fitness and reading program Eat. Learn. Play. Stephen Curry also has his own media company and has starred on several television shows. He is also president of Under Armour’s Curry Brand.

To keep all off this in order, Curry has trusted Williams to guide him as the leader of their Thirty Ink collective that drives impact across its eight business groups and 13 entities involving studio, brand, fitness, lifestyle, impact, media, philanthropy and technology.

Williams implements Curry’s strategic vision and goals, budget approvals, departmental project management, team building and corporate culture development. She also drives company growth and performance while reflecting the values and goals defined by Curry. She acts as his non-NBA agent and prioritizes key business opportunities and creative endeavors that evolve Thirty Ink. She also has her eye on long-term strategy and maintains their business relationships with Under Armour’s Curry Brand, JPMorgan Chase, Rakuten, Callaway and more. As part of Curry’s Unanimous Media arm, she also served as executive producer on Max’s About Last Night, as well as Apple TV+’s sports documentary Stephen Curry: Underrated.

“She is the point person to make sure the integrity of deal structure is aligned with our mission,” Curry said. “She manages our whole team, manages my schedule, is the point person on making sure I’m represented well in every conversation, every meeting.

“And obviously, my direct kind of point of contact on all things business, strategy planning or decision making. So, she’s got a big role. It’s grown tremendously over the last three years and I’m sure it’ll continue to evolve.”

Long before Curry was drafted by the Warriors in 2009, Williams had long been a Warriors fan since her youth growing up adoring NBA stars Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway, Latrell Sprewell, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal. She often went with her father to games, driving the 30 miles from Benecia, California, to Oakland Arena where the franchise played primarily from 1971 to 2019. She even coerced her father to take the longer drive to San Jose to catch Warriors games at San Jose Arena during the 1996-97 season while renovations took place at Oakland Arena. In terms of a basketball career, she called it quits after scoring just two points in a season on her junior high team.

Williams stayed involved in hoops as a scorekeeper for the Benecia High School boys’ and girls’ basketball programs while going to school there. It was at that point that she realized that she can be a part of a sports team without actually playing.

“My first scorekeeping game was horrible because I didn’t know what I was doing, but I picked it up really quickly,” Williams said. “At some point, I was doing both JV and varsity. I have a picture of me with the team all in my sweatshirt and my jeans. That was my first entry into sports where I realized you don’t have to be playing on the team to be involved.”

Williams attended San Jose State University majoring in broadcast journalism, but learned late in school that being regularly in front of the camera wasn’t for her. After graduation, she turned toward public relations with a focus on entertainment. She interned for the San Francisco 49ers, the California Music Channel, and hip-hop radio station KMEL. She eventually landed a job with the Warriors, initially as a front desk receptionist at their practice facility atop the Oakland Marriott Downtown (now used by the WNBA Golden State Valkyries) in 2006.

From 2006 to 2016, Williams climbed the ladder with the Warriors by managing events; working in player and business development, promotions and programs; and creating new business opportunities for the franchise. She helped build the Warriors events department under new ownership, leading a variety of initiatives, including the 2015 NBA championship parade. She eventually rose to the level of Warriors director of special events.

It was during that time with the Warriors that she built a trusting working relationship with Curry.

“She was working with the community relations department for the Warriors back my rookie year,” Curry said. “So, we crossed paths doing some stuff where she was helping the players make community impact. She obviously had a great presence there when I first started to think about off-court stuff just a little bit more broadly. Most of the time the answers are right under your nose. It was an interesting time for her career-wise.

“She is somebody you trust that understands who you are, how you operate, align passions on finding any opportunity to leverage whatever resources, partnerships, opportunities to change people’s lives. We vibed off of that for sure. So, it’s kind of symbolic of me coming through the Warrior ranks and at the same she was going through the transition from old ownership to new ownership with the Warriors. She always had very consistent presence with the players, which was helpful.”

After fighting through injuries early in his career, Curry didn’t become an NBA All-Star until 2014. Williams said she believed that Curry could be special on and off the court long before then due to not only his flashy game but his great family upbringing.

“When you talked to him, he looked you in the eye and paid attention to what you were saying,” Williams said about Curry. “Maybe some guys are doing some other things when you’re asking them about events. He’s actually paying attention, listening and thinking about it. In the times where he had to tell me no, he would think about it and gave you a story on why. I thought that made him different and then you saw it on the court as he progressed.”

In hopes of growth, Williams decided it was time to leave the Warriors in 2016 and said she was in the final rounds of a job interview with the City of Santa Clara as a liaison between the city and the San Francisco 49ers (the 49ers play in Santa Clara at Levi’s Stadium). At that time, Curry was looking for someone to help him run all of his off-court endeavors. Through his nanny, who is also Williams’ aunt, Curry heard that Williams was considering leaving the Warriors.

Curry contacted Williams in July of 2016 to tell her he needed someone to lead his budding business venture. Shortly after the call, she was sold on the job after their first meeting at his home. So, instead of leaving the Warriors for the City of Santa Clara, Curry eventually hired her to leave the franchise that had just gone to two straight NBA Finals.

“I told him, ‘My goal was to learn and grow, and working with you would be a great opportunity for that.’ And at the time he said, ‘I can’t promise you anything. I don’t know what this looks like.’ But I was up for the challenge,” Williams said. “I was so scared to tell everybody that I was leaving the Warriors. But to my surprise, everyone, the executives, were very supportive and very happy for me. I thought it was a great move for me.”

Williams was initially hired by Octagon Basketball in 2016 as a client operations director by Curry’s agent Jeff Austin. While Curry’s company was being formed, Williams centered on developing his company and all of his endeavors off the court.

“As Stephen’s life got more and more complicated, we needed someone to manage his time and all of his opportunities,” Austin told Andscape. “As we got going, it made more sense for her to work directly with Steph and manage that relationship. It became clear that Steph trusted her and we would go directly to her on things.”

Said Curry: “It was divine timing for sure. When we first hired her, she was an Octagon employee that worked slowly with me. She slowly worked into a transition as COO.”

Curry and Erick Peyton founded Unanimous Media in 2018 as a multimedia company that produces television, film and digital content. In 2019, Curry started SC30 Enterprises as the arm of his investments as well as his brand partnership, media and philanthropic interests. SC30, Unanimous Media and all of Curry’s other off-court interests now exist under Thirty Ink.

While Williams is COO of Thirty Ink, she said a team effort is key for the company’s success. They had office space in Oakland and San Mateo before moving to San Francisco. She says they have about 40 employees working for the company now and more hires are on the way.

“We’re continuing to build the business and hire great people,” Williams said.

Williams simply described Curry’s on- and off-court plate as “a lot.” Several plans were put on hold as he spent more than a month helping USA Basketball win a gold medal during the 2024 Paris Olympics. Once Curry returned from Paris, his focus was his family and getting ready for the Warriors season, not business interests.

Williams says she is professionally straightforward with an explanation when she turns down one of a number of never-ending opportunities pitched to Curry. She also prioritizes not scheduling anything on Curry’s off days.

“It’s been tough,” Williams said. “I’ve been telling a lot of people no. There is never going to be a lack of opportunity. There are things that we want to do. But just unfortunately, right now, we won’t fully catch up until realistically 2026.”

NBA All-Star Weekend in the Bay Area will be quite busy for Curry and Williams. She said Thirty Ink has been planning for this weekend for more than a year.

The NBA and NBPA will collaborate with Stephen and Ayesha Curry’s Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation and KABOOM! to beautify the East Oakland Pride Elementary School yard and renovate the library as part of the NBA Cares State Farm Assist Tracker program. On Saturday morning, Curry will participate in the NBA All-Star Game practice at Oakland Arena. Curry played at Oakland Arena, then called Oracle Arena, for the Warriors from 2009 to 2019 before the team moved to San Francisco.

The Warriors star is going to wear his Curry 12 ‘What The Bay’ from Under Armour, created specifically to NBA All-Star Weekend, and has billboards all over the Bay. Curry is expected to attend NBA All-Star Saturday night at Chase Center as a non-participant, and is hosting a private party on Friday and Saturday. Curry and Thirty Ink are taking over a space in Thrive City next to Chase Center with museum space and a Unanimous Media project launch. On Sunday evening, Curry will be participating in the NBA All-Star Game at Chase Center.

“So, if you look at the schedule of paper, it would look like a lot,” Curry said. “It probably will feel like a lot once we get to it. But a lot of the stuff I’m excited to do and kind of hyped to see what the response is and the impact. So, that makes the experience a whole lot better than it used to be when I first started to understand what All-Star Weekend is really about.”

Said Williams: “With every All-Star [Weekend] it’s crazy. But with it being here, it’s going to be a lot of fun and I want to make sure he can spend time enjoying it.”

Curry has some very important Black women in his life in his wife — his mother, Sonya; sister, Sydel Curry-Lee; wife, Ayesha; and his two daughters, Riley and Ryan. Williams is also like family to him and is one of the African American women who play a very important role in his life. The Oakland resident was a former board member with the Physicians Medical Group, where she worked to increase the number of people of color in the medical field, and also served as a member of WISE, Women in Sports and Entertainment.

Stephen Curry believes representation matters and seeing Williams in such an important role could be inspirational for young girls of color like his own.

“Tiffany inspires people to dream big on what is possible,” Curry said. “She is on speaking engagements and panels where she talks about her story and experience. Even in talking to Ayesha about how Black women are received in the business world, no matter what your business experience and accomplishments are, there are speed bumps and hurdles they face.

“Tiffany is smashing through those. I want her to be successful in everything on her own merit. That is the opportunity she has capitalized the last 10 years and what is in front of her. Tiffany is a great example as well as Ayesha, my mom, all the Black women in my life that are important to creating that inspiration for sure.”

Williams will be honored during an All-Star Sunday brunch by PLAY MAKE HER, an organization supporting the advancement of women and girls interested in sports and entertainment careers, executive mentorship and career enrichment. She pointed out that she is not alone in terms of Black women being in a right-hand role with current and former NBA stars. There is Carmen Green-Wilson, Lisa Joseph-Meletus, Asani Swann, Nicole Beatty, Bailey Williams, Ashley Combs, Michelle Obeso-Theus, Esichang McGautha, Alisha Smith, Ashanti Rubin, Lauryn Gillis and Nailah Waterfield, to name a few.

“There are more Black women in this right-hand role than you would imagine,” Williams said. “But I do take pride in it and the hard work. I was seen for what I did with the Warriors and was able to be put in a position to be here. But there are more [Black women in right-hand roles] than people think, even if it’s just a handful.

“The advice I give is to work hard and let the work speak for itself. Always make sure when the opportunities come, you’re fully vetting those and you’re going where you’re really want to go. Don’t put yourself in a box. When you look at the opportunities, look to see where they help you get to your ultimate goal and not just being in the moment.”

Williams is very proud of her move from the Warriors to work with Curry and is excited about what is to come.

“I made the right decision,” Williams said with a laugh. “I don’t know how much a decision it was. It was almost meant to be.”