Ronald A. Williams

1949–

Business executive

Ronald A. Williams rose to a become one of the most powerful African-American business leaders in the United States. As Chief Executive Officer of Aetna, Inc., one of the nation's leading health insurance providers, Williams oversaw some 27,000 employees and services delivered to nearly 15 million insurance plan members. He earned respect throughout the insurance industry as a talented problem-solver who has always been willing to toil outside of the limelight to strengthen the companies he has managed.

Rose from Working-Class Neighborhood

Ronald A. Williams was born in 1949 in Chicago, Illinois. During his childhood, Williams had no reason to expect that he would become a big-time success in the corporate world. He grew up in a working-class Chicago neighborhood. His father worked as a parking lot attendant, later advancing to a somewhat better job driving a bus. His mother worked part time in a beauty salon. Williams' goals were quite modest; he did not try to imagine much beyond going to college. He managed to achieve that goal with the help of student loans, taking classes at night, and working during the day. He graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago in 1970 with a degree in psychology.

Shortly after graduating, Williams landed a job as a junior aide in the office of the Governor of Illinois. While working there, he began to realize that he was capable of accomplishing much more than he had ever imagined. For the first time, he began to see African-American men in high-ranking positions, and it occurred to him that there was nothing stopping him from similar achievements. Being a person of color did not, as experience had led him to believe, mean that he could only work at low-paying occupations. "It started with an awareness that there were significantly greater opportunities, and many of the limitations that my parents faced were not limitations that I would face," Williams was quoted as saying in a January 2006 article in the Hartford Courant.

Williams took a major step toward business success by enrolling at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned a master's degree in the mid-1980s. Interested primarily in service industries, Williams gravitated toward health care early in his business career. He was co-founder and senior vice president at Vista Health Corp. Other positions included group marketing executive at Control Data Corp.; and president and co-founder of Integrative Systems, a mid-career assessment and testing firm.

Excelled in Insurance Industry

In 1987, Williams joined Blue Cross of California as Vice-President for Corporate Services. Over the next several years, he worked his way up the Blue Cross organizational chart. In October of 1995, Williams was named president of Blue Cross of California, a role he filled from October of 1995 to March of 1999. At the same time, he was Executive Vice President of Blue Cross' parent company, WellPoint Health Networks. In April of 1999, Williams was promoted to Group President of WellPoint's Large Group Division, serving in addition as Executive Vice President of WellPoint's Large Group Businesses.

In March of 2001, Williams was hired by insurance giant Aetna, Inc., a direct competitor of WellPoint, initially coming on board as Executive Vice President and Chief of Health Operations. Williams quickly became the right hand of Aetna president Jack Rowe, who had joined the company a year earlier. When Williams was hired, Aetna was experiencing serious financial problems. Williams immediately became one of the company's point people in addressing the crisis. The chief problem he identified, according to his comments on MIT's Sloan School Alumni Web site, was that the company "had simply not organized our data into information for meaningful decision making." Williams led the team that created Aetna's Executive Management Information System, a powerful data analysis and reporting system capable of collecting data from all corner's of the company and translating it into a wide variety of reports on many different performance measures.

In a short time frame, the management team of Rowe and Williams righted Aetna's finances and turned the company into an industry innovator. They cut costs dramatically by laying off a lot of employees, dumping unprofitable units, and streamlining remaining operations. The pair also gave Aetna an influential voice in the public policy arena on health care issues. Their styles, however, could scarcely have been more different. In contrast to Rowe, an outspoken and charismatic manager often called a "visionary," Williams is a soft-spoken, behind-the-scenes leader whose reputation was built on a record of putting practical operations ideas into action and seeing them actually work. In May of 2002, Williams was named Aetna's President, with Rowe retaining the title of CEO. Williams was appointed to the company's board of directors a few months later. That year, Fortune magazine included Williams on its list of the "Top 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in America."

At Aetna, Williams was more involved in day-to-day operations than other executives. He set up his office on the first floor of the company's Hartford, Connecticut headquarters rather than on the eighth floor like the other high-ranking officials. He initiated quarterly meetings with about 5,000 managers and supervisors, and maintains an active presence on the company's internal computer network, where employers from anywhere in the company can ask him questions—and actually expect to receive a response.

Recognized for His Skill

In October of 2003, Williams was elected to the Board of Directors of Lucent Technologies, Inc. and to the Board of Trustees of The Conference Board, an independent, nonprofit membership organization that collects and disseminates information about management and markets. In 2005, Black Enterprise concurred with Fortune's assessment of Williams a few years earlier, naming him to the magazine's "75 Most Powerful African Americans in Corporate America" list.

At a Glance …

Born Ronald A. Williams in 1949, in Chicago, IL; married Cynthia Williams; child: Christopher. Education: Roosevelt University, BA, Psychology, 1970; Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MS, Business Management, 1984.

Career: Vista Health Corp., co-founder and senior vice president; Control Data Corp, group marketing executive; Integrative Systems, president and co-founder; Blue Cross of California, various executive positions, 1987–1994, president, 1995–99; WellPoint Health Networks, Inc., executive vice president, 1995–2001, group president, Large Group Division, 1999–2001; Aetna Corp., executive vice president and chief of health operations, 2001–02, president, 2002–, CEO, 2006–.

Memberships: Lucent Technologies, Board of Directors, 2003–; The Conference Board, trustee, 2003–; Dean's Advisory Council and Corporate Visiting Committee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Awards: Fortune Magazine's "Top 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in America," 2002; Black Enterprise, "75 Most Powerful African Americans in Corporate America," 2005.

Addresses: Office—Aetna, Inc., 151 Farmington Ave., Hartford, CT 06156.

Under the leadership of Williams and Rowe, Aetna's stock rose some 700 percent between May of 2001 and January of 2006, and the company's net income grew from $127 million in 2000 to $1.6 billion in 2005. When Rowe announced his impending retirement in 2005, Williams was the obvious choice to succeed him as CEO of Aetna. Williams took over on February 14, 2006. The transition was so seamless—nobody expected any significant changes in the way things were run—that it was barely noticed outside of the company. Even inside Aetna, the changing of the guard lacked the drama that often accompanies such events. Williams' calm demeanor and methodical intelligence had long ago earned the confidence of colleagues and industry insiders.

"He exudes confidence and is careful and deliberate in his thinking and action," Alan White, senior associate dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management was quoted as saying in Newsday. "You don't want someone to come in and make a bunch of splashy decisions. He won't take an unwise action. I've never known him to." Industry analysts and investors seemed to agree; the week Williams took the helm at Aetna, the company's stock reached its highest value ever.

Sources

Periodicals

Black Enterprise, February 2005; January 27, 2006.

Business Week, December 8, 2003; January 16, 2006, p. 47.

Business Wire, January 4, 2006.

Hartford Courant, January 5, 2006.

Newsday, February 13, 2006.

On-line

"A New Doctor for Aetna," Business Week Online, www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jan2006/nf2006014_9348_db035.htm?campaign_id=search (April 28, 2006).

"Featured Alumni," MIT Sloan School of Management, http://mitsloan.mit.edu/mba/alumni/williams.php (April 28, 2006).

"Ronald A. Williams," Aetna Inc, www.aetna.com/presscenter/williams.htm (April 28, 2006).