ABOUT ME
Vanessa Williams is the founder and CEO of Leading Edge Consulting, LLC, a distinguished executive advisory firm with a strong focus on achieving real business outcomes. She possesses a unique combination of Fortune 500 executive success and credentials coaching and guiding CEOs and senior leaders. Vanessa's deep and broad operational, financial, and cross-functional experiences enable her to bring an enterprise-wide view and high business acumen to deliberations and decisions facing any board of directors.
For 25+ years, Vanessa led service, relationship management, productivity, and talent development at major financial services institutions for large client segments in the US and internationally. She led collaboration across multiple Prudential Retirement functions, implementing holistic solutions to improve the customer experience. At Sun Life Financial, Vanessa worked with the worldwide organization to embed the enterprise customer loyalty program. Earlier in her career, she led financial and operational teams at Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, and the University of Connecticut Health Center.
She is a director for two CEO Trust Advisory Boards – Virginia Industries, Inc., and First State Bank of Texas. Vanessa previously served on the Board of Directors for Internet Services Incorporated and chaired the Audit Committee. Vanessa was recently Board Chair of Easterseals Capital Region & Eastern Connecticut. Vanessa holds an MS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a BS from Virginia State University.
She has the Professional Certified Coach designation, granted by the International Coaching Federation, and received corporate board of directors certification by CEO Trust's BoardTrust.