Victor Williams

CEO at NBA Africa

Speaker

As CEO of NBA Africa, Victor Williams oversees the league’s basketball and business development initiatives in Africa and is responsible for continuing to grow the popularity of basketball and the NBA across the continent through grassroots development, media distribution, corporate partnerships, the growth of the Basketball Africa League (BAL), and more.In May 2021, Williams oversaw the launch of NBA Africa as a standalone entity that conducts the league’s business in Africa, including the BAL. Under his leadership, the league opened its third office in Africa in Lagos, Nigeria, in February 2022 and successfully completed the second BAL season in May 2022.Prior to joining the NBA in August 2020, Williams served for five years as the Executive Head of Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB), Africa Regions for Standard Bank Group, where he oversaw the strategy, execution and financial performance for Standard Bank’s business with corporate, sovereign and institutional investor clients in 19 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. In this pan-continental role, Williams was responsible for growing a wide range of business lines across Africa, including global markets, investment banking and transactional products and services, and helped lead Standard Bank’s expansion into Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia and South Sudan. Williams was named among the 100 Most Influential Africans of 2021 by New African Magazine. He is a member of Harvard Business School’s Africa Advisory Board and has also served on the boards of publicly-listed companies and non-profit organizations in the U.S., Nigeria and Kenya. A dual citizen of Sierra Leone and the U.S., Williams holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and bachelor’s degrees in applied math and economics from Brown University.