Jon Williams

ByABC News
May 6, 2013, 1:01 PM

— -- Jon Williams joined ABC News as managing editor for international news in March 2013. Williams has been involved in covering some of the biggest stories in the United Kingdom and around the world for more than 20 years.

Prior to his current role with ABC News, Williams spent seven years as world editor at the BBC, where he managed a staff of 200 people in 30 different countries, shaping the organization's news coverage and strategy. Williams has traveled extensively to Afghanistan, China and the Middle East.

He led the BBC's coverage of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Israel-Lebanon War, the 2008 Olympics and the U.S. presidential elections. In 2007, the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Lebanon conflict won an international Emmy in the news category. Most recently, he oversaw the organization's reporting of the civil war in Syria, which was honored with the 2013 International Prize by the Royal Television Society.

As the executive running the BBC's field operations, Williams led crisis management teams following the murder of one colleague by terrorists and the five-month kidnap of another, which ultimately ended with his safe return.

Williams served as the BBC's U.K. news editor during the 2005 general election and the terror attacks on the London transport network, which was recognized with a BAFTA award.

From 2000-2003, he served as the main broadcast producer on the BBC's "Six O'Clock News" -- the U.K.'s most-watched news program -- during 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2003, an investigation into racism in Northern Ireland received a Royal Television Society award.

Before joining the BBC, Williams worked for ITN, where he played a central role in the launch of Channel 5 News in 1996.

In 2012, Foreign Policy magazine named Williams (@WilliamsJon) one of the "Top 100 Twitterati."

Williams studied at Manchester University, where he was awarded a BA (Hons) in politics and modern history. He is a native of Liverpool.