Gwendolyn W. Williams - Bio

Gwendolyn W. Williams retired as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Assistant General Manager (AGM) for Supply Chain Services on November 1, 2018, and formed WYSA Project Solutions, LLC. Since that time she’s provided consultative services in procurement and project management.

As AGM at LADWP she was tasked with the role of change agent. Some of the change activities accomplished with the support of her staff included, a significant increase to the number of SCS employees allocated to support the three LADWP divisions, implementation of a new SBE/DVBE program, reorganization of SCS to a more customer focused organization, development of the LA Small Business Academy at USC, initiation of a quarterly periodical, Supply Line, to provide the 15,000 member supplier community with insight about upcoming contracts and the capabilities of small businesses, growth of the LADWP Vendor Fair to one of the largest in the City, development of a more transparent LADWP Board Report, implementation of a LADWP wide 12-hour Contract Administrator Training program, establishment a Vendor Authentication Program to mitigate fraud and abuse, development of an Environmentally Preferable Products (EPP) program and annual EPP supplier presentation, development of procurement standard templates and Standard Operating Procedures, improvement in the structure of the RFP process, and initiation of a successful change to the City Administrative Code which included an increase in the dollar amount of contracts that could be approved by the LADWP Board of Commissioners and resulted in substantial savings in staff time and project schedules. The last activity she initiated at LADWP was a collaborative Woman-Owned Business (WBE) event focused on addressing procurement challenges faced by women and the contributions of women in the area of sustainability.

Prior to her tenure at LADWP she served as a Project Manager in Los Angeles and Tripoli, Libya for the engineering firm AECOM, Principal Consultant at her firm, WYSA & Associates where she worked on various project management projects, Executive Officer for Procurement at LA Metro, and other municipal and private sector organizations.

She holds a M.S from USC and is a Project Management Professional (PMP). For the past 30+ years she’s worked as a project manager and procurement/contracts professional tasked with implementation of major change initiatives in both the public and private sectors.

Her recent advocacy activities include service on the Amtrak Citizens Advisory Board, the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Diversity Board, and the Edge Foundation Board.