Ronald Allen Williams (born 1949) is an American businessman and board director on corporate, public sector and non-profit boards. He is the former chairman, president and
chief executive officer
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization.
CEOs find roles in variou ...
(CEO) of Aetna Inc. and is the founder, chairman and CEO of RW2 Enterprises, LLC.
Williams is the author of ''Learning to Lead: The Journey to Leading Yourself, Leading Others, and Leading an Organization''.
Business leadership
Williams serves on the board of directors of Warby Parker. He previously served on the boards of Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and American Express. He is an operating advisor to the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. (CD&R). He is co-founder and chairman of the board of agilon health and is chairman of the board of apree health, formed by the combination of VERA Whole Health and Castlight.
Williams is chairman of
The Conference Board
The Conference Board, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) non-profit business membership and research organization. It counts over 1,000 public and private corporations and other organizations as members, encompassing 60 countries.
Th ...
and participates with the Committee for Economic Development (CED). He was a member of the
McKinsey & Company
McKinsey & Company (informally McKinsey or McK) is an American multinational strategy and management consulting firm that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinse ...
External Advisory Group until 2024.
He previously served as vice chairman of
The Business Council
The Business Council is a nonpartisan organization of business leaders headquartered in Washington, D.C.Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare (CAQH). He was an advisor to ''The Wall Street Journal'' CEO Council and a former member of the GE Healthymagination Advisory Committee.
Aetna leadership
Williams served as both chairman and CEO of Aetna until November 2010 and as chairman through April 2011. He also served as chairman of the Aetna Foundation from 2006 to April 2011. In 2011, Aetna's revenues were $34 billion, and the firm ranked 77th on the Fortune 100 list.
Mr. Williams joined Aetna in 2001 and in 2002 was named president and joined Aetna's board. He was named CEO in February 2006 and chairman of the board in October 2006. In 2001, Aetna reported a net loss from continuing operations of $292 million and
earnings per share
Earnings per share (EPS) is the monetary value of earnings per outstanding share of common stock for a company during a defined accounting period, period of time, often a year. It is a key measure of corporate profitability, focusing on the inte ...
loss from continuing operations of $0.46. In 2011, full-year operating earnings were $2.0 billion with operating earnings per share of $5.17 producing a 12.3 percent operating EPS CAGR over the prior five years.
Public service
Williams serves on MIT's North America Executive Board.
In March 2011, Williams was appointed to the President's Management Advisory Board, which was assembled by
U.S. President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
. He served in that capacity until 2017. He serves on the board of the Peterson Center on Healthcare board of advisors, the
Peterson Institute for International Economics
The Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), known until 2006 as the Institute for International Economics (IIE), is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded by C. Fred Bergsten in 1981 and has been led by ...
In 2013 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an independent, multidisciplinary policy research center.
Early business career
Prior to joining Aetna, Williams served as group president, and president of WellPoint (now
Anthem
An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to sho ...
), having joined WellPoint's predecessor firm, Blue Cross of California, in 1987. Previously, he was co-founder of Visa Health Corp. and group marketing executive of
Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer companies, which group included IBM, the Burroughs Corporation, and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the N ...
.
Education
Williams holds a
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
in
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
from
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a private university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1945, the university was named in honor of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university enrolls arou ...
and a
Master of Business Administration
A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...
from the
MIT Sloan School of Management
The MIT Sloan School of Management (branded as MIT Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree progra ...
.
External activities, awards and recognition
During his career, Williams has received media recognition and other awards including:
* '' Modern Healthcare'' magazine's "100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare 2009"
* '' Black Enterprise'' magazine's "100 Most Powerful Executives in Corporate America, 2009"
* ''
Institutional Investor
An institutional investor is an entity that pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked ...
'' magazine's 2009 "America's Best CEOs Health Care Managed Care category"