Chris Williams

Chief Compliance Officer

Phone: 501-500-0897

Email: chris.williams@appliedcapital.com

415 N. McKinley Street, Suite 1045

Little Rock, AR 72205

Born and raised in Little Rock, Chris received his BS in Business from Philander Smith College in 1998.  He later went back to school get his Master’s in Management Information Systems (MIS) from UALR in 2012.

Chris’ first job out of college was in the regulatory industry, working for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as a bank examiner.  He spent the next 11 years learning about the banking industry, conducting bank audits, and becoming familiar with federal rules and regulations pertaining to banking and finance. 

While at FDIC, Chris developed an interest in programming which was the spark that led him to go back and get his Master’s in MIS.  During that time, he interned at UAMS in the cancer institute while learning database development.  He then earned a full-time position as a developer, working on SQL databases, and performing ad hoc data requests.  As part of the Cancer Institute IT team, Chris mainly provided informational support in the form of data requests, to researchers working on various types of cancer treatments. 

After 6 years of supporting cancer research data requests, Chris used that knowledge to transition into a programming career at Vestcom International where he was a software developer.  In addition to working on SQL databases, he began to learn to code in C# and spent the next 4 years as software developer.  While at Vestcom, he worked on the company’s order management system that grocery store clients use to customize and order shelf tags for numerous stores across multiple locations.

Chris eventually ended up connecting with Brad Raines, the Principal Advisor at Applied Capital, where they discussed the growth of the firm had experienced over the last several years.  Brad expressed that the firm had recently crossed the size threshold that would require a full time Chief Compliance Officer, and presented a scenario of a young, but experienced firm with high growth potential.  After months of deliberation, Chris decided to join the team in March of 2021, following a year of working from home.  Although Chris has been happily married for 22 years to his wife Anita, she was probably happy to have him working outside the house again.