Image of Caroline Williams smiling to camera

Doctor of Laws

A ‘parallel entrepreneur’ who specialises in creating successful teams for businesses.

For 20 years, solicitor Caroline Williams was a partner at the firm Blake Lapthorn, specialising in commercial and corporate law. Her last role was as Managing Partner for a business that had grown to over 400 staff, with three locations in the South East and London.

She then became a ‘parallel entrepreneur’, creating teams for a number of companies. These included BC Capital Limited, a company specialising in corporate finance and private equity, and Biocontrol Limited, a developer of new treatments for antibiotic infections, now part of a NASDAQ listed company. She also acts as a business angel and a Non-executive Director.

In 1998, Caroline was appointed by the Government as a founder board member of the South of England Development Agency, a position she held until December 2002. She was Chair of the University of Portsmouth’s Board of Governors from 1995 to 1999, and a member of the Southeast Regional Council of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) from 1996 to 2003.

Caroline chaired the Hampshire Economic Partnership from 2003 to 2010. She served as a trustee and later Chair of the National Museum of the Royal Navy until 2020, having previously been Chair of the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Portsmouth in 2002.