William F. Kennedy
Board of Directors
William F. Kennedy
New Jersey native William F. “Bill” Kennedy graduated from Red Bank Catholic High School in 1957. After working as a runner and floor clerk at the New York Stock Exchange, he enrolled at Potomac State Junior College where he graduated in 1962. While a student at Potomac State, he played football and basketball. He also met his future wife, Mary Zimmerman, also a Potomac State grad (1962).
Bill received a bachelor’s degree in finance from West Virginia University in 1964 and began his career in 1965 as a financial advisor with Eastman Dillon, Union Securities in Baltimore, Md. In 1970, he was promoted to branch manager and stayed in that position until 1975 when he was promoted to branch manager of the Washington, D.C., office. In November 1978, he was transferred to New York City to oversee Eastman Dillon’s largest branch.
He joined Kidder, Peabody & Co. in 1980 as branch manager of the 460 Park Avenue office and served as the New York regional manager from December 1983 until 1986 when he was named eastern regional manager. In March 1984, Bill was elected to the board of directors of the firm and became an Allied Member of the New York Stock Exchange. He was appointed Chief Operating Officer to the private client group at Kidder, Peabody & Co. in 1990, where he was responsible for overseeing 50 branch offices and 1,200 financial advisors. At that time, he became a member of the 12-person management committee of the firm.
In January 1995, Kidder, Peabody & Co. merged with Paine Webber and Bill was named division manager of the newly created Mid-Atlantic Division of the private client group. In January 1996, Paine Webber restructured their divisions and his division became the southern division which encompassed 90 branch offices and 1,800 financial advisors. In August 2000, Paine Webber merged with J.C. Bradford of Nashville, Tenn., and his division grew to 115 branch offices with 2,400 financial advisors and more than $1 billion in revenues.
Bill retired in February 2002 after 37 years on Wall Street. At his retirement, Paine Webber renamed their management training program the “William F. Kennedy Leadership and Development Program.” He continues to serve as an advisor to that program, as well as a consultant to UBS Paine Webber.
In addition to his professional accomplishments, Bill is active in his community where he coached little league basketball and baseball. He is a member of the New York Stock Exchange Hearing Panel. He co-established the Dale Ramsburg Baseball Scholarship Fund at WVU and supports the WVU College of Business & Economics. He and his wife, Mary, established the Mary and Bill Kennedy Room at Gilda’s Club - named for the late comedienne Gilda Radner - a place where men, women and children living with cancer, their families and friends, can join together to build social and emotional support as a supplement to medical care.
He and his wife, Mary Zimmerman Kennedy, also a WVU graduate (1964), live in Bayhead, New Jersey and Naples, Florida.