About LEC

V. 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.

Vanessa focuses on what will help leaders excel in the real world. She is best known for her integrity, results orientation, collaboration, and ability to form trusted advisor partnerships with leaders and teams at all levels. As a senior operations executive with a deep understanding of organizational structures, roles, and responsibilities, Vanessa uniquely understands business needs and connects them to the people and team challenges.

Vanessa holds an MS in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a BS from Virginia State University, and is a Professional Certified Coach. She serves on a variety of corporate and non-profit boards nationwide.