Michael Williams ’82, a wrestler as an undergraduate student at Cal and the current vice chair of the UC Berkeley Foundation, is serving as Interim Director of Athletics, a role he began in July 2014.

Williams was elected to the UC Berkeley Foundation Board of Trustees in 2007 and joined the Foundation’s Executive Committee in 2009. He is also on the advisory boards of the UC Berkeley Division of Equity and Inclusion, the Haas Socially Responsible Investment Fund, Bronze Investments and several nonprofit boards, including the California Heritage Trust.

Additionally, Williams is an active member of the Chancellor’s Task Force on Academics and Athletics, which plans to issue a report in the fall on campus policies and practices; the role of coaches, administrators and faculty; and issues related to academic expectations and the student-athlete experience on the Berkeley campus.

Williams retired in 2009 as vice chair, Capital Markets, for Barclays Global Investors, the world’s largest institutional asset manager at the time. Other roles at BGI included head of the Global Index and Markets Group, where he was directly responsible for over $1.1 trillion in assets, head of Global Securities Lending and CEO, President and Trustee of BGI's mutual funds. Before joining BGI in 1993, Williams was a debt trader and corporate finance officer for Bank of America. He began his career at Data Resources, Inc.

After receiving his degree in economics from Cal, Williams earned an MBA in finance from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. He and his wife Jeanne have three children and reside in Lafayette.