Ron Williams

A veteran business leader, turn-around expert, and advocate for value creation, bestselling author Ronald A. Williams is the chairman and CEO of RW2 Enterprises, LLC. He is active in private equity, having chaired four PE healthcare companies from acquisition to exit. He is a director on corporate, public sector, and non-profit boards. The former chairman and CEO of health insurance giant Aetna Inc. devotes his time and energy to helping CEOs, c-suite executives, and boards with strategy and values-based leadership and the continued transformation of the healthcare system.

Williams is a former director of the Boeing Company, co-founder and chairman of Agilon Health, director at Warby Parker, and chairman of Apree Health, which includes Castlight and Vera Whole Health. Williams previously served as lead director of American Express and director for Johnson & Johnson. He is an operating advisor to private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R), where he successfully guided three CD&R portfolio company exits: Envision Healthcare (NYSE: EVHC), PharMEDium Corporation, and naviHealth. He is a member of the McKinsey External Advisory Group, created in 2019 to provide an objective external perspective to inform the overall strategy of the firm.

At Aetna, Williams turned a struggling organization into an industry leader, transforming the company’s strategy, culture, operating performance, and financial results. When he joined Aetna in 2001, its loss from continuing operations was $292 million, with an earnings per share loss of $0.46. Williams was named president and joined Aetna’s Board in 2002; he became CEO in February 2006 and chairman in October 2006. In 2011, the year he stepped down as chairman, Aetna’s full-year operating earnings were $2 billion, with operating earnings per share of $5.17. Revenues were $34 billion, up from $19.9 billion in 2005, and the company was ranked 77th on the FORTUNE 100 list. Market capitalization grew from $4.7 billion in 2001 to $15.3 billion in 2011. During his tenure, Aetna was named FORTUNE’s most admired company in the Healthcare: Insurance and Managed Care category for three consecutive years.

Williams is chairman of The Conference Board and a member of the Cleveland Clinic Board of Trustees. He is a member of the President’s Circle of National Academies, which advises the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine), and the National Research Council. He also serves on the boards of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and is a member of the Peterson Center on Healthcare Advisory Board. His previous board service includes NAF (National Academy Foundation), the MIT Corporation, RAND Health Advisory Board, Deutsche Bank Americas Advisory Board, Bipartisan Policy Center’s Commission on Political Reform (CPR), Save The Children, Vice Chairman of The Business Council, Chairman of the Healthcare Leadership Council, and Chairman of the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare. He served on President Obama’s President’s Management Advisory Board from 2011 to 2017.

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an independent, multidisciplinary policy research center founded in 1780, and became a Trustee of the Committee for Economic Development, a non-profit, non-partisan, business-led public policy organization.

Williams is a graduate of Roosevelt University and holds an M.S. in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management.