In 1985, he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of Delaware. In 1993 he earned a Master of Business Administration from Boston University and joined the Federal Reserve Bank as an examiner in Boston and San Francisco.
He is a faculty member in the Finance and Economics Department at Boston University where he teaches courses in banking, risk management and capital market activities. Williams most recently co-authored a report with Harry Markopolos, the Bernie Madoff whistle blower. He became a bank trust officer for Wilmington Trust Company and joined Territorial Decoration Banknorth in 1987.
In 1997 he joined Citizens Power Limited Liability Company, a Boston-based energy trading company and became a senior vice president, Head of Global Risk Management.
Since 2002, he has been on the faculty of Boston University as Executive-in-Residence/Master Lecturer. Williams is a frequent guest columnist and editorial contributor for the Financial Times, Reuters, Forbes.com, and Business Insider.
He has also written articles for Fool.com, the Boston Globe, Foreign Policy magazine and Bloomberg. In 2013 Williams predicted that Bitcoin would trade for less than 10 dollars by mid-2014, and provided testimony before the New York State Department of Financial Services hearing on virtual currencies.
In fact, bitcoin remained well above 200 dollars throughout 2014.
He raised concerns about bitcoin including it being a high-risk virtual commodity, having artificially inflated price, extreme hoarding, hyped demand, high potential for market manipulation, and need for strong regulation. On April 2, 2014, Williams provided congressional testimony before the United States. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business discussing the 10 major risks associated with bitcoin. The bitcoin community remains critical of his concerns.
Williams also continues to assert that the virtual currency is in a hyper bubble and will eventually suffer a price collapse.
Williams is a member of the Standard & Poor’s Academic Council, a senior advisor at the Brattle Group and is on the board of Appleton Partners, a Boston-based private wealth management firm.
