PBN names CFO winners

JEROME WILLIAMS, executive vice president for finance and administration for Roger Williams University, is being recognized for career achievement in PBN's annual CFO Awards program. / COURTESY ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY
JEROME WILLIAMS, executive vice president for finance and administration for Roger Williams University, is being recognized for career achievement in PBN's annual CFO Awards program. / COURTESY ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE – Providence Business News has selected the honorees in its annual Chief Financial Officer Awards program, including the winner in the career achievement category, Jerome Williams, the executive vice president for finance and administration for Roger Williams University.
Williams will be honored along with eight others at the fifth CFO Awards event, to be held Thursday, April 30, at the Bello Center on Bryant University Campus, from 5:30-8 p.m.
Roger Williams President Donald J. Farish noted in his nomination form for Williams that at the same time he was improving the university’s financial controls, he established a capital spending plan, negotiated the school’s expansion in Providence and created enough budgetary wiggle room to allow RWU to guarantee flat tuition over the course of entering students’ time there.
Farish also noted that RWU’s balance sheet improved at the same time its endowment showed growth that exceeded benchmarks. Williams’ program of refinancing bonds helped the school to pay down long-term debt by nearly 20 percent over the last five fiscal years. His financial management also allowed the school to create a $20 million plan to rehabilitate existing assets without the issuance of new debt.
Williams earned bachelor’s degrees in accounting and institutional management from Bryant University as well as an MBA from the Smithfield school. He has been at Bristol-based RWU since 2009, following more than a decade in state government in Rhode Island and nearly a decade with Fleet Boston Financial.

Other CFO Awards winners include:

  • Public company,: Deborah Thomas, Hasbro Inc.
  • Large private company (more than 150 employees): Marianne Caserta, Atrion Networking Corp.
  • Mid-size private company (75-150 employees): Donna Lantagne, Beta Group Inc.
  • Small private company (less than 75 employees): Trad A. Campbell, Freedom National Bank
  • Nonprofit social service agency: Laurie Devlin, Crossroads Rhode Island
  • Nonprofit (health care, higher education, other): Joseph Greene, Johnson & Wales University
  • Government: Zachary Saul, Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island
  • Quasi-government agency: Kara Lachapelle, Rhode Island Housing

To register for the awards dinner, visit PBN.com.
The presenting sponsor of the CFO Awards is KPMG; partner sponsors include Bryant University’s Graduate School of Business and Executive Development Center, and Gencorp Insurance.

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