Will Burrington

Chairman and Chief Leadership Officer of Urban Blue, former SVP at AOL

Will Burrington is the Chairman and Chief Leadership Officer of Urban Blue Company, a South Florida-based leadership and venture development firm – leading and living by design. In 2008-09 he will pursue his MBA degree at the internationally acclaimed Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University’s Executive MBA program in Coral Gables, Florida.

Will is a seasoned lawyer and advisor, an effective advocate, and former senior executive for America Online, Inc. (a Time Warner Company). He has earned a reputation as a passionate and visionary leader. In 1998, Will was profiled for his outside-the-box business advocacy, effective coalition-building and visionary leadership skills in the best-selling book, AOL.com, authored by Kara Swisher, the Silicon Valley reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

In 2001, Will co-founded StreamLine based outside Brussels, Belgium, the European Union (EU) capital. StreamLine is an international film financing, marketing, and production company with a focus on CGI animated films.

At the end of 2000, Will retired from AOL after serving as Senior Vice President of its International Division. He also served in a variety of other senior roles while at AOL, including Vice President for International Public Policy as well as Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer for AOL Europe in Hamburg, Germany and London, England. He opened and headed for five years AOL’s Washington, DC Public Affairs and Policy Office and served frequently as a company and Internet industry advocate and spokesperson, including testifying several times before the U.S. Congress on a variety of Internet and e-commerce public policy issues and trends. He also chaired the Internet and e-commerce industry’s primary trade group, the Internet Alliance in Washington, DC.

Prior to his career at AOL, Will served as executive director and general counsel to a major telecommunications-related industry association; chief counsel to a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin, and an attorney in private practice with respected law firms in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Washington, DC, where he represented a variety of city and county governments.

In 1984, Will earned his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in Government from Lawrence University, a nationally ranked private liberal arts college in Appleton, Wisconsin. In 1987, he earned his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee where he was a member of the Marquette Law Review and recipient of the 1987 Dean’s Award. He remains a member in good standing of the State Bar of Wisconsin.

In 2005, Will was appointed by the Fort Lauderdale City Commission to serve a two-year term on the City’s Economic Development Board and was elected its chair. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Fort Lauderdale Riverwalk Trust; a member of the Interfaith Alliance; the Church of Religious Science Fort Lauderdale; the Urban Land Institute; the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce, and a lifetime member of the Leadership Broward Foundation.

A native of suburban Milwaukee, Will is 46 years old. He has lived in Milwaukee; Washington, DC; London, England; Hamburg, Germany, and Key West, Florida. He currently resides along the New River in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Florida.