AMERICAN EXPRESS SENIOR EXECUTIVE APPOINTED TO CHAIR JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF NEW YORK BOARD OF DIRECTORS
NEW YORK, June 28, 2007 -- JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF NEW YORK, INC. (JANY) announced it has elected Mr. Anré Williams, President, Global Commercial Card at American Express, as Chairman of the Board of Directors, replacing Mr. Phillip Lynch (CEO, Asset Control Systems, Inc.) who concluded his two-year chairmanship of JANY. Prior to his appointment of Chairman, Mr. Williams served as Vice Chair of the JANY Awareness Action Team on the JANY Board.
JANY Board Chairs are selected based on their commitment to JANY's mission to inspire and prepare young people to be successful in a global economy; for their vision and ability to inspire and command the respect of their peers; and for their ability to lead and to focus on accomplishing results.
Mr. Williams' first experience with JANY was as a classroom volunteer over fifteen years ago. He has been a member of JANY's Executive Committee for most of his tenure on the Board. Mr. Williams' accomplishments are many since joining the JANY Board in 2002. He instituted the JA Leadership Council model at American Express that resulted in as many as 100 JA classroom volunteers per year. He initiated company-wide annual JA bowl-a-thons that have grown to involve nearly 1,400 Amex employees, raising over $400K in gross revenue this past year. As leader of the JANY board Awareness Action Team, Mr. Williams recruited new board members and secured valuable resources resulting in the launch of a new JANY web site and development of a JANY Corporate Volunteer Activation Toolkit.
“I am honored to have been selected to chair the JANY Board at such a critical time of growth and opportunity for the organization,” said Mr. Williams. He continued, “There is much to do, but we are on the right path.”
“Junior Achievement of New York feels fortunate to have the leadership and support of such an accomplished business individual as Anré Williams during such an exciting period of growth and opportunity. Under his governance and leadership, Junior Achievement of New York is confident that we will continue to grow and pursue our mission, to prepare our students for success in school and at work,” said JANY president, Douglas E. Schallau.
JANY's outgoing Board Chairman, Phillip Lynch, echoes Mr. Schallau's enthusiastic endorsement, “What we admire most about Anre Williams is that he leads by example. He has shown a deep commitment to education and serving the students of New York City and Long Island. Anré is a strong, creative leader with superb organizational skills: he's focused on action and results. We're excited about the new perspective and direction he will bring to JANY.”
Mr. Williams was recently appointed to the position of President, Global Commercial Card, at American Express with overall responsibility for the Company's division that markets the American Express Corporate Card, Corporate Purchasing Solutions and other payment products to mid-sized companies and large/global corporations. Anré now leads a team of 2,500 employees around the globe that are primarily responsible for sales, client management, and implementation.
Williams joined American Express in 1989. In his early years with the company, Mr. Williams marketed unique services to college students and Platinum Cardmembers. Working in the Small Business division, he led new product development and supervised the launch of seven new products and services in a two-year period. Subsequently, he led Acquisition and Advertising for the Small Business division. For the past eight years, Williams has worked in the Global Corporate Services division. He served as Vice President and General Manager, Large Market Western Region and Senior Vice President, U.S. Middle Market, before being named Executive Vice President, U.S. Commercial Card, in 2004.
Williams earned his BA from Stanford University in 1986 and his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. In addition to his work at JANY, he serves on the Board of Ryerson, Inc. (a Chicago-based metals distributor). Williams resides in New Jersey with his wife and two children.
About Junior Achievement of New York, Inc.
Founded in 1929, Junior Achievement of New York, Inc. (JANY) is the New York based affiliate of Junior Achievement Worldwide (Founded in 1919 in Springfield, MA). JA is the world's largest and fastest-growing organization dedicated to teaching young people financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and work force readiness skills. JANY's mission is to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy. Last academic year, JANY's in-school and after-school programs serving students K-12, reached nearly 92,000 students in the NYC and Long Island geographic area. Today, 145 individual area operations reach approximately four million students in the United States. Internationally, more than 3.5 million students are served by operations in 100 countries. For more information, visit www.jany.org.
About American Express
The American Express Company is a leading global payments, network and travel company founded in 1850. Through its Global Commercial Card group, American Express provides the Corporate Card(TM), Corporate Purchasing Solutions(TM), S2S(SM) and other expense management services to mid-sized companies and large/global corporations worldwide. In the U.S., it is the leading issuer of commercial cards, serving more than 50% of the Fortune 500 as well as tens of thousands of mid-sized companies. American Express issues local-currency commercial cards in 40 countries, and International Dollar Corporate Cards in an additional 100 countries. More information can be found at http://www.americanexpress.com/corporateservices.
