Named president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce in 1997, Sam A. Williams leads this organization of 4,000 member companies that collectively employ more than 1 million workers. The Metro Atlanta Chamber focuses on the big issues that matter most to the business community: creating jobs and boosting the region's quality of life by finding solutions in the areas of transportation, education and the environment.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber works with many partners to recruit companies and headquarters to metro Atlanta by focusing its marketing strategy on the logistics, high-tech and biomedical sectors and on global trade. Brazil, Russia, India and China are major global markets currently being pursued in this effort.

Here at home, Williams has worked to make metro Atlanta a model of successful public-private partnerships to improve the region's quality of life. He has brought together broad-based and highly visible coalitions of leaders on issues critical to the region, such as the arts, water, transportation, quality growth and health care. These coalitions, comprised of business, civic and elected leaders, have resulted in the creation of some of the region's most impactful organizations, including the Metro Atlanta Arts and Culture Coalition, Metro North Georgia Water Planning District, Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and the Livable Communities Coalition.

Williams also has played a crucial role in other public-private partnerships. Through his leadership, the business community developed a partnership with Gov. Sonny Perdue and Mayor Shirley Franklin to tackle the $3.2 billion sewer improvements for metro Atlanta. The partnership resulted in $500 million in state support toward the city's sewer improvements and a referendum that overwhelmingly approved a one-penny sales tax by a 3-1 margin. The Metro Atlanta Chamber also led the effort to save Grady Memorial Hospital from closure, resulting in $300 million of private sector pledges to the new Grady nonprofit board.

Prior to joining the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Williams was president of Central Atlanta Progress (CAP), where he organized metro Atlanta leaders to improve infrastructure prior to the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. Williams has made sure that the metro area has continued the momentum it captured by hosting the Olympic Games. In the 10 years following the Games, more than $1.8 billion in hotels, office buildings, mixed-use development and entertainment structures have risen in metro Atlanta.

Williams joined CAP after 21 years as a partner at John Portman's architect-development firm. He was responsible for real estate development in the United States, Middle East and Asia. Earlier in his career, Williams served on the staff of Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen.

Williams has chaired and served as a board member of the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, Action Forum (a biracial committee of CEOs fostering racial cooperation), Emory University Board of Visitors, Georgia Tech Board of Advisors and the Corporation for Olympic Development in Atlanta. He has also been recognized by Georgia Trend in its list of “Georgia's Most Influential Leaders” consistently for more than 20 years and is being inducted into the Georgia State University Business Hall of Fame.

Williams is a Tennessee native and a graduate of Georgia Tech and Harvard Business School. His daughter Stephanie is a graduate of Colgate University and daughter Lindsay is a graduate of Washington & Lee University and Emory's Goizueta School of Business.