President’s Bio

Tom Willis revisedTommy Louis Willis was born September 9, 1949 in Charleston MS to Jimmy Louis and Ruth Nichols Willis. He became a member of St. James AME Church in 1960 and graduated from East Tallahatchie High School in May of 1967. Tom enrolled at MS Valley State College in August of 1967 on a music scholarship. After a series of student protest incidents, he transferred to Chicago State University in 1970. He met and married Emma Delores Briggs in 1971. They had two children, Tommy Briggs Willis in 1974 and Heather Briana Willis in 1978. Delores was taken by cancer after 38 years of marriage.

Tom Willis has almost 40 years of experience in business. After 3 years in merchandise management with Wilson Sporting Goods, he worked more than 17 years at Pitney Bowes Mailing Systems in sales, sales management, and sales training at the district, regional, and national levels. During his career at Pitney Bowes Tom earned 9 National Sales Leadership Conference awards and 4 “Pacemaker” awards. Tom spent 9 years as Senior Manager for Sales Training at Office Depot where he specialized in setting B2B sales strategy for their contract sales force. Currently he is retired as President of ConSELLtant, a firm specializing in sales force development. He’s also a singer, President Pro Temp of the Board of Trustees at Grant Chapel AME Church in Lake Worth FL, President of the North District Lay Organization in the 11th District – South Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

A former President and member of the Board of Directors of the Professional Society for Sales and Marketing Training, Tom is the founder of the SMT Sales Training Certification Program. He has also served on the Advisory Board of the Center for Professional Selling at Baylor University, and as a sales consultant to several manufacturing companies.

The American Business Awards recognized Tom as one of the best sales trainers of the year in 2004. Tom holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and is certified in Curriculum Development, Management Training, and Educational Technology. He has trained thousands of sales people throughout the U.S.A. and in England, France, and Canada. His sales training materials have also been used in Australia and South America.

Tom was first elected President of the National Charleston Day Organization in the year 2000 after completing the term of President Luannie Pitts Taylor, who passed away in office. He served in that capacity for seven years. Since then he has served as 1st Vice President. He is proud to be a native of Charleston, and grateful for the opportunity to serve this organization.