Professor Emeritus Howard Williams held a chair at Graduate Business School, University of Strathclyde. His research has focused on issues of technical change, economic development and innovation in the OECD and emerging markets.

Professor Williams has worked as an economist and lead policy advisor for international organizations including the European Commission (DG InfoSoc), the World Bank and the Internet Governance Forum. He has contributed to a broad range of economic and policy debates about licensing, access regimes, investment incentives, wholesale market regulation as well as the application of competition law principles to the telecommunications and ICT sectors. His work on mobile financial transactions is internationally recognized, and he has acted as an advisor to many governments, regulators and leading industry players, for example providing advice to the Government of Hong Kong on their new competition law. He has also pioneered work on competition analysis in the Internet, especially with regard to search. He is a member of the Vodafone SIM panel and a member of the editorial committee of several leading journals.

At the University of Strathclyde Professor Williams created and was Director of the Masters in Communications Management (MCM), one of the leading programmes in the world providing opportunities for future leaders from developing countries in the telecommunications and ICT sectors. Alumni from this programme now hold senior positions in these sectors in over 60 countries. He has held fellowships at a number of academic institutions including University of Bocconi (Milan) and the Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford). He is also currently an advisor to the Skolkovo Centre, Moscow.