By Lincoln DePradine

Grenadian Ray Williams remembers the times, as a child of less than 10 with little means, growing up in Tivoli with his grandparents, while his parents were away in England helping to rebuild that country following World War II.

“It was the most happy time of my life,” said Williams, who celebrated his ninth birthday in Britain, after moving there to join his Grenadian parents.

Today, Williams is a successful, award-winning financial services executive and philanthropist in Canada. He gives back to Canadian society, especially to citizens of Caribbean and African descent, and also wants to contribute further to Grenada and the wider Caribbean.

“One of the things I’m looking to do is support Black communities and the Caribbean has so much to offer; sometimes I look and I think there are ways that some of that can be undertaken. So, I’d love to be in a position where I’m supporting Grenada and other Caribbean countries; I actually do that right now, in small ways. But, I’d like to be able to create a much larger impact going forward,’’ Williams told me.

He made the comments in an interview held during the 2023 University of the West Indies (UWI) Toronto Benefit Awards.

The awards, which have raised more than CAN$3 million in the past 14 years, are used as a fundraiser to assist student achievers at the UWI.

The event also celebrates and awards “outstanding community and global leaders’’, who “continue to shine a light of hope for the next generation’’.

Williams, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Financial Markets at Canada’s National Bank Financial, received a UWI Vice Chancellor’s Award.

It’s not the first award bestowed on William. Others include an award from the Black Business and Professional Association of Canada and another from the Ontario Black History Society.

However, there was something different about the UWI’s award, Williams said.

“This one is special because it’s coming from an organization that represents a long and august history in the Caribbean, as an educational institution,’’ he said. “I am overwhelmed. I am feeling a sense of deep gratitude and appreciation.’’

Williams, as the eldest of five children, underscores the importance of education. He put himself through North Staffs University and Coventry University in the UK, and worked his way up the ladder of the banking and financial sectors.

As a professional employed in major cities such as Toronto, London and New York, he has more than three decades of experience in global capital markets, and has held leadership roles in marketing, trading, and risk advisory and execution.

Williams also has been a lecturer at Centennial College and McMaster University in Canada.

“I am an example of a small kid coming out of Grenada, barefoot, and because of education and being able to undertake it along the way, it has created opportunities for me that I never would have had,’’ said Williams.

“Education has allowed me to go to places I would never have been and it has allowed me to serve my community in a way that I possibly could not have, if it wasn’t for that. I’m a lifelong learner; education, for me, is key.’’

Williams devotes time to volunteering, including mentoring, supporting charity, motivational speaking, and promoting diversity and inclusion causes.

This has led him, among other things, to serve as the founding-president of the Canadian Association of Urban Financial Professionals; a member of the Pension Investment Committee of the United Way of Greater Toronto; and co-chair of the Canadian Foundation for Aids Research.

In 2020, he co-founded the Black Opportunity Fund (BOF) as part of an effort targeted at “overcoming embedded systems of behaviour that do not contribute to Black economic well-being’’, said Williams.

The organization, a registered charitable outfit, aims at dismantling anti-Black racism through the establishment of a sustainable pool of capital to fund Black-led business, and Black-led non-profit entities, to enhance the social and economic standing of the Black communities across Canada.

Williams and the partners that launched the BOF focus on such things as inter-generational wealth, financial literacy, Black people getting greater access to housing and education, and encouraging more involvement in STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

One of BOF’s initiatives is the “Black Business Loan Program’’. Under the program, Black entrepreneurs, who are unable to secure funding through Canadian financial institutions, are eligible for loans of between $10,000 and $50,000.

“Real estate represents a substantial part of the wealth of Canadians; and, with the increasing wealth gap and lack of affordability, the challenges for Black communities to bridge that gap become worse with each passing year,” said Williams, whose passions also include cooking. He holds a culinary arts certificate from George Brown College in Toronto.

Cooking, in the words of Williams, is his “meditation’’ and assists him to “de-stress very quickly’’.

Williams has described education as the “great leveler’’, saying it has “created access to helping me be who I am today. Everything I think I know, I would say that education and access to education, are the key and are responsible’’.