How Carol Williamson Built a Culture Powerhouse at Millennium

Corporate culture isn't just ping-pong tables and free kombucha - and Carol Williamson's playbook proves it.

Millennium's secret sauce? A ruthless focus on values alignment that makes other firms' 'culture initiatives' look like half-baked HR checkboxes.

When traditional finance firms still measure culture by annual engagement surveys, Williamson's team tracks real-time behavioral metrics - because what gets measured gets manipulated (then optimized).

Wall Street's culture problem won't be solved by another diversity task force. Maybe it's time they took notes from the crypto natives who actually walk the talk.

Markets Media spoke with Carol Williamson, Head of Compliance, Hong Kong, Millennium, who won Excellence in Corporate Culture at the 2025 Women in Finance Asia Awards.

Surprise! It was an honour to be recognized by the committee and share the stage with such a talented group of women in the industry. I’m very grateful for the support of my colleagues and the opportunity to work with such exceptional individuals.

Working in a fast-moving, high-performance environment requires resilience as well as agility in one’s thinking. It requires collaboration, consistency and transparency between teams, as well as dedication to building and maintaining strong relationships.

For any firm operating globally with team members located across various countries, it helps when there is a Core set of values that is well understood by all team members, who can all work together towards a common goal.

It is important to understand the firm’s CORE set of values and goals, but also, on a day-to-day basis, be interested in what different business areas want to achieve and why. Asking questions, spending time with people and learning what they do and how their teams operate can be tremendously helpful in forging productive relationships and achieving good outcomes. Earlier in my career, I was perhaps reticent to ask lots of questions but as time has gone on, I’ve realized that people welcome your curiosity and interest, especially if it means you can contribute more effectively and provide more valuable, better-informed insights to discussions and business decisions.