Freddy Williams, 38

Freddy Williams says he used to avoid competitions like the Business Observer’s 40 Under 40 program because he was afraid of being judged by his age. He landed his first CEO role in 2012, when he was just 28, leading the Boys & Girls Clubs of Lake and Sumter counties. In 2016, he joined the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Suncoast, headquartered in Clearwater, as president and CEO.

“I told myself, ‘When I've been a CEO for 10 years, then I can come out with my age,’” he says.

Over the past decade, Williams, a Boys & Girls Clubs alumnus, went to great lengths to burnish his business credentials so his peers would look past his youth. He earned a MBA from Florida International University and followed that up by graduating from Harvard University’s Performance Management for Non-Profit Organizations certificate program. He also engaged the services of Vistage Florida, a business advisory and executive coaching organization, and joined the CEO Council of Tampa Bay.