In the short time since Carla Williams was named Virginia’s director of athletics in October of 2017, she has made an impact on the Cavaliers athletics landscape. Quite literally.

With a background as a student-athlete, coach and administrator, Williams’ approach to leading Virginia is forward thinking. Her focus is on providing opportunities for student-athletes to maximize their college experience while establishing a culture and support system for the sport programs to compete for championships. Above all, her commitment to academic excellence is unwavering. Williams wants student-athletes at UVA to grow, prosper and prepare themselves for their futures away from athletic competitions. To ensure that approach becomes a reality, she announced The Master Plan project in 2018 that will set the course for generations of future Hoos.

During her short tenure as UVA’s athletics director, Williams has witnessed a revival of the Cavalier football program and a history-making performance by the men’s basketball team. Under coach Bronco Mendenhall, UVA’s football program has gone to back-to-back bowl games for the first time in 14 seasons and the Cavaliers capped the 2018 campaign with a shutout performance against South Carolina to win the Belk Bowl. The Virginia men’s basketball team won the program’s first NCAA Championship in 2019, finishing the tournament with a run of three dramatic come-from-behind victories to cap an epic storyline after UVA exited the championship a year earlier as the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed. The Cavalier men’s lacrosse team captured its eighth national title in 2019 and helped UVA to an eighth-place finish in the Directors’ Cup. Virginia also claimed the Capitol One Cup for men’s sports in 2019, the second time it won the award since 2015.

In the classroom, UVA student-athletes have set record numbers for placement on the ACC Honor Roll, achieved highest grade point average totals in program history and been recognized by the NCAA for outstanding achievement on academic progress reports. Williams’ appointment at Virginia made her the first female African-American athletics director at a Power Five conference institution. At the time, she was the fifth active female athletics director at that level.

Williams was an active member in her community, local schools and church and was on the board of directors for the Athens Area Community Foundation and LLL Community Group. She has served as a committee member for Oconee County School System projects and been involved in the Athens Clarke County Mentor Program. In May 2015, Williams was recognized by the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia as the Athens Woman of Distinction. That same year she was named one of the top-10 senior woman administrators in the NCAA by the website CollegeAD.org.

Williams and her husband, Brian, who is an associate professor of public policy in Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, have three children: daughters, Carmen and Camryn, and a son, Joshua.