Council on Finance and Administration

of The United Methodist Church

June 4, 2010

To the people of the New York Annual Conference:

On behalf of the CCFA, I would like to introduce you to Ross Williams, whom we will nominate to be the next Treasurer/Director of Administrative Services of our Annual Conference.

Ross is a life-long United Methodist.  He grew up in Yonkers, attending the Asbury-Crestwood United Methodist Church.  As a young adult, he belonged to the New Canaan UMC, and for the past twelve years he's been a member of Darien UMC.  He helped bring Natural Church Development to Darien and currently serves as the chairperson of the Finance Committee and Stewardship Committee.

Ross comes to us from Cognizant Technology Solutions, a $4 billion global provider of Information Technology services with over 85,000 employees.  From 1998 to 2004, he was Cognizant's Vice President and Corporate Controller.  Since 2004 he has been Vice President and Chief Risk and Compliance Officer.

He became a Certified Public Accountant in 1992, the year after earning the M.B.A. from Fordham University.  While there he was a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society.  He graduated cum laude from the State University of New York at Brockport, with a B.S. in Finance/Economics.

In an email to CCFA, he wrote, "I was not active in the job market when learning of this position.  I applied for the job because I felt it would be a unique opportunity to apply my accounting and finance background to the service of my Christian faith." Ross has been married to Brenda for seventeen years, and they are the parents of three children: Nicole, 15; Danielle, 13; and Graham, 7.

CCFA is very grateful to a wonderful search committee, and we would like to thank each one of them for lavishing such time and care on this task: Rev. Noel Chin (Chairperson), Sabrina Chandler, Myung Rae Kim, Jorge Lockward, Rev. Ann Pearson, Rev. Stephen Phillips, Gillian Prince, and Rev. William Shillady.  We thank Bishop Jeremiah Park for his leadership in forming the committee.

Finally, although this is an introduction to Ross, we cannot let the opportunity pass to thank Ernest Swiggett for his twenty-three years of service, his extraordinary helpfulness in the search process, and his going the second mile to make the transition seamless.

Sincerely,

Rev. Timothy J. Riss
President