Todd Williams

Background

About Todd Williams

Highly committed to the transformative power of a quality public education, Todd currently serves as the founding Chairman and CEO of The Commit Partnership, the nation's largest educational backbone organization which is focused on supporting improvement in living wage attainment across Dallas County and the state of Texas. He previously served for eight years as the Education Policy Advisor to Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, and currently serves on the governing board of StriveTogether, a national "backbone" supporting the 60+ regional backbones across the U.S. Todd also serves on the fiduciary board of Fidelity Charitable, the nation's largest donor-advised fund with over $70 billion of assets under management.Previously, Todd served as the former board chair for Austin College, one of the region’s leading liberal arts institutions, and with his wife Abby was a founding chair of the regional advisory board for Teach for America in Dallas/Ft. Worth. Todd and Abby also together helped establish the Uplift Williams Preparatory School, a K-12 free tuition public charter school operated by Uplift Education that educates over 1,500 primarily low-income Hispanic children in northwest Dallas. Todd is also the former Chair of the Dallas ISD’s Citizen Budget Review Commission and the former Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees for Uplift Education, a college-prep focused public charter school management organization serving over students. He is also a founding board member and former chairman of the Real Estate Finance and Investment Center at the University of Texas and a former chairman of the Real Estate Council of Dallas, the city’s largest real estate organization.Prior to dedicating his efforts as a full time volunteer supporting improvement in public education in Dallas, Todd served as both a partner and as global co-head of Goldman Sachs’ real estate private equity investment area, retiring in 2010 following a 20 year career with the firm in their New York, Los Angeles and Dallas offices. Total assets under management purchased by GS-managed real estate funds exceeded $100 billion in cost across 25 countries.A Dallas ISD graduate from Bryan Adams HS, Todd earned an M.B.A. with distinction from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Austin College.Specialties: Education policy, Investment management, acquisitions, finance