Angela Williams

Overview 

Angela F. Williams served as President and CEO of United Way Worldwide, one of the world's largest nonprofit networks, and was the first Black woman to lead it. United Way reaches about 1,100 communities across roughly 36 countries and territories, focusing on education, financial stability, and health. Before United Way, she was President and CEO of Easterseals, a national organization supporting people with disabilities, and before that Executive Vice President and General Counsel at YMCA of the USA. A lawyer by training, she began her career as an officer in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps and later worked as a federal prosecutor and as counsel to a U.S. senator. She announced her retirement from United Way in late 2025.

Why She Matters

Angela Williams shows young people that nonprofit leadership can be built one experience at a time, through law, military service, government work, and roles at several respected organizations, rather than through a single, straight path. Her moves between very different causes, from disability services to disaster relief to the broad mission of United Way, show that skills like leadership, communication, and financial management transfer across missions. As the head of one of the most recognized nonprofit networks on the planet, she also represents the scale nonprofit leadership can reach, overseeing an organization that touches millions of lives through local United Way chapters. For young people who care about many different causes rather than just one, Williams' career proves that nonprofit leadership does not require picking a single issue forever.