About
Helping Leaders Succeed
Rick founded and ran his own company. He now helps leaders be more successful in their leadership roles through his speaking to leadership groups, serving on the boards of directors of technology companies, and communicating to a large international audience through his books, newsletter, and thought leadership articles.
Rick brings a unique combination of professional and life experiences to his work with leaders who want their organizations to be successful and want to be more successful leaders themselves. Rick brings a clarity of purpose, realistic options, meaningful context, risk assessment, and a view from off the boat. He helps clarify the issues to be addressed, define the decisions to be made, create realistic options, and evaluate the execution risks. He communicates clearly in both public and private settings and encourages others to discover, for themselves, their best path forward.
Foundation of Experience
Rick Williams is based in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a Harvard Business School graduate and a physics graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
He brings to leaders with whom he works his experience founding and operating a successful company. He also brings his experience as a management consultant to a broad spectrum of private and public clients across many business sectors. Rick has advised top national leaders on difficult public policy issues and has a special understanding of how government works and how it impacts business. He is prepared to understand the key issues facing company leaders quickly.
Rick serves on the board of directors of technology companies, usually in the B-to-B space. He has been board chair for a medical device company—Point Care Technology—with worldwide sales and served as COO and board member of a med therapy company with operations in the US and India. He is on the board of Amorphex Therapeutics with an optical drug delivery technology. Previously, he was board chair of what is now named the Growth Capital Corporation—a Massachusetts-based quasi-public bank and VC firm.
For ten years, Rick was a management consultant with the global consulting firm Arthur D. Little, Inc., based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At ADL, Rick led client assignments on business strategy and acquisitions and directed large cases on the economic and strategic impact of government policy and regulations on process industries such as chemicals, oil and gas, and on innovation broadly.
After ADL, Rick founded and was President of The Equity Company, an award-winning multifamily real estate investment and development company. He was elected President of the Harvard Business School Association of Boston. The members of the Private Directors Association, PDA, elected Rick to PDA’s national board of directors. PDA is the professional association of independent directors of private companies. Rick started his career at the Itek Corp. developing space and defense-related photo & electro/optical systems, and he published peer-reviewed research on optical system performance.
Sailboat Racer
Rick races his J 130 sailboat, CHARIAD, from Marblehead, Massachusetts. He has won many regional and local regattas and competed in international races to Bermuda and Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Rick draws leadership lessons from his experience – even before setting sail for a race — getting the right crew on the boat, preparing the complex boat, sails, and navigation systems technology, and training the eight-to-ten-person team. Once the gun goes off, your boat is competing against the wind, waves, and other well-prepared boats. You must have the right strategy for the race and execute on your plan as conditions change during the day.
His article, Everything I Know About Leadership I Learned on my Sailboat, brought together many of the lessons he has learned through his sailboat racing about preparation, teamwork, the leader’s job, and learning from others that apply to leadership of any business or organization.
Art Photographer
Photography is Rick’s artistic expression. He describes his photograph as composition art – giving the viewer engagement, wonder, and beauty by the image’s composition. His leadership newsletter usually includes an original photograph and a short story about the image or the circumstances when he captured it. Each year, he runs a contest with his readers. They vote for their favorite photo image from the previous year. Two winners are randomly selected from readers who voted for the winning image. Each gets a signed original photograph of the winning image.
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