Mark is a risk-management practitioner and academic with three decades of experience. Since 2002, he has been on the finance faculty at Boston University, teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Previously, he worked as a senior trading floor executive, a bank trust officer and as a bank examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank. His areas of expertise include risk management in banks, hedge funds and Fintech, including virtual currencies and blockchain. He was a recipient of the Beckwith Teaching Award in 2008 and 2021. In 2018 he was awarded the James E. Freeman Lecturer Chair in Management. In addition to teaching his expertise is called on frequently by national media. He has also been a guest columnist for the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters.com, Forbes.com, The Boston Globe, Foreign Policy magazine and The New York Times. In 2010 he published Uncontrolled Risk (McGraw Hill), a book examining the root causes of the financial crisis and the rise and fall of investment banking giant Lehman Brothers. This book has also reprinted in Chinese. In 2014 he was asked to provide congressional testimony on the risks associated with virtual currencies. He has also presented on virtual currencies to The World Bank and at The Bretton Woods Committee. He joined the Lesley University Board of Trustees in 2018, In 2020 he served on President Biden’s Election Campaign’s Economic Subcommittee. Since 2022 he has been the President of the Boston Economic Club.

Williams holds a BSBA in Finance from the University of Delaware and a MBA from Boston University.