Daryl Williams is the CEO of Urban Market Investments, in charge of the strategic long-term vision, partnership strategy, and day-to-day operations.
Prior to co-founding UMI, Daryl was a Founding Director of the DeBruce Foundation of Kansas City, charged with developing and supporting products, innovation, and sustainability primarily in entrepreneurship and workforce development to change how people pursue careers.
Daryl was previously the CEO of the Urban Entrepreneur Partnership, Inc. a partnership with Center for Transformation & Strategic Initiatives (CTSI), as well as other public and private national organizations designed to help grow minority entrepreneurs around the country. Under Daryl’s leadership the UEP expanded to an $14.5 million organization that serves populations in Kansas City, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Sarasota, Houston, and Detroit, serving over 1,500 entrepreneurs around the country.
Daryl was also the Director of Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City for 13 years, managing a multimillion-dollar grant portfolio. In this role, he was responsible for all strategic initiatives, research agendas and programmatic strategies in minority entrepreneurship.
As a national authority on minority entrepreneurship, Daryl has participated in and shared his expertise on numerous panels relating to minority entrepreneurship issues including: The White House National Economic Council, Department of the Treasury-New Market Tax Credit, The White House Urban Entrepreneurship Summit, and the “State of the U.S. Economy and What it Will Take to Put America Back to Work” Clinton Global Initiative, amongst many others.