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William Hickman is the Chairman of Ravenswood LLC, a family-owned investment and advisory company that maintains significant positions in natural resources, environmental technology, healthcare, and defense companies. Ravenswood invests with and is an advisor to IIS Holding of Doha, Qatar.
He also serves as an executive board member of Atlantic CrossBorder LLC an international investment company in the areas of natural resources, defense security, food distribution, health care, and cyber security. In addition, he is an advisor to Oando PLC, one of Africa’s largest indigenous integrated oil companies.
Mr. Hickman’s business experience includes serving as an Operational Partner with Pegasus Capital Advisors, a leading mid-market environmental private equity fund. He was the former President of FreeMarket Global, Inc. an international investment company that he co-founded with the Hon. Jack Kemp and partners from Abu Dhabi focused on natural resource, real estate, and oil services projects in Africa and the Middle East. Mr. Hickman also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Avis Capital Group, Inc. an international investment company established by the founder of Avis Rent a Car.
Prior to his business career, Mr. Hickman practiced law in the U.S. for 25 years representing domestically and internationally several of the leading Fortune 50 corporations including Du Pont, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed, Bank of America, Amtrak, RJ Reynolds, and United Airlines. As a corporate lawyer, Hickman represented several of the major US and international oil companies, including Net Oil Enterprises, Chevron, Texaco, Atlantic Richfield, and Sun Oil. This experience included negotiating term-lifting agreements in Africa on behalf of Sun Oil with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation and advising Net Oil during its negotiations for the building of the Baku- Ceyhan pipeline project in Azerbaijan /Turkey.
Before his corporate legal experience, Hickman enjoyed several years as a civil rights attorney with the Roxbury Defenders of Massachusetts and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Mr. Hickman has been involved in Africa as a lawyer, a businessman, and charitable works since 1981. These efforts include Chairmanship of the St. Marks College of South Africa Foundation, the Chair of the Oando Foundation of Nigeria (USA), and his work in conflict resolution in the South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In recognition of his activities in conflict resolution, he was the honored recipient from the Bishop Tutu Phelophepa Foundation, The Humanitarian Award. Domestically, Mr. Hickman served on boards of several for-profit and not-for-profit including New York Land Services, Inc., and as a member of the Board of Trustees of Loyola Marymount University of Los Angeles.