Boards

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 as well as 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 future leaders with  strategy, values-based leadership, and the continued transformation of the health care industry.

Through RW2, Mr. Williams counsels C-Suite corporate executives on the development of strategy and on how to achieve transformational leadership grounded in core values, keys to successful board service. He works with private-sector and nonprofit groups to address critical societal needs, including how to transform American health care so that it creates more value for consumers.

Mr. Williams is Operating Advisor to private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Director of the Boeing Company, Co-Founder and Chairman of agilon health, Director at Warby Parker, and Chairman of apree health (previously Castlight/ Vera Whole Health). Mr. Williams previously served as Lead Director of American Express and Chair of the Compensation Committee for Johnson & Johnson.

He successfully guided  three CD&R portfolio company exits: Envision Healthcare (NYSE:EVHC), PharMEDium Corporation and naviHealth.

At Aetna, Mr. 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 earnings per share loss of $0.46. Mr. 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 Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care category for three consecutive years. Under Mr. Williams’ leadership, Aetna sought to make a positive impact on health care in America by serving as catalyst for change, focusing the industry and it’s many participants to transform American health care into a more efficient system that delivers greater value. Aetna pioneered large-scale consumer-directed health plans, including industry-first health reimbursement arrangements and health savings account plans. The company also invested in both studying and publishing the findings from medical claims and utilization patterns from these plans, placing Aetna at the forefront of discussion about health care reform. Aetna was an early advocate in calling for an individual coverage requirement to expand access to health care and was a supporter of mental health parity legislation.

Mr. 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.

Prior to Aetna, Mr. Williams was a member of the Office of the Chairman at WellPoint Health Networks Inc. where he served as Group President, and President of the company’s Blue Cross of California subsidiary. Mr. Williams joined WellPoint’s predecessor firm Blue Cross of California in 1987. Previously, Mr. Williams was co-founder of Vista Health Corp. and group marketing executive at Control Data Corp.

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