Richard J. Geruson’s experience spans CEO roles at Lexmark, Phoenix Technologies, and VoiceSignal; and SVP/executive positions at Nokia, IBM, Toshiba, and McKinsey & Co. He is currently CEO and Chairman of GBSI providing global Board services and investments to public and private companies, and where he has served on 28 Boards and 38 Advisory Board across 3 continents.
Previously, as CEO of Lexmark, the multi-billion dollar Fortune-500 IBM imaging technology spinoff with 10,000 employees, he grew device sales faster than any time in the previous 10 years. Simultaneously he executed deep process reengineering, transforming the business from negative EBITDA and high debt to a positive $303M EBITDA and healthy debt levels.
Prior to Lexmark, as CEO of Phoenix, Mr. Geruson achieved consistently high EBITDA ranging from 20% to 25% year-over-year for 6 years straight in the company’s business of firmware and software for Notebooks, Tablets, PCs and IoT (Internet of Things) devices.
Before Phoenix, as CEO of VoiceSignal, Mr. Geruson pioneered Voice Recognition software for mobile phones, resulting in an increase in shareholder value of over 10-fold and culminating in the sale of the company for 12 times its Revenue.
Previous to VoiceSignal, as SVP at Nokia, Mr. Geruson propelled the mobile phone business from 5th place market share to 1st place in the US, and 1st place in the world for the first time in its history, growing Nokia's Americas business almost 10-fold to $6.5 billion, and catapulting the stock price to more than a 7-fold increase in less than 3 years.
As one of the youngest VP/GMs in IBM’s history, Mr. Geruson transformed IBM’s Networking business worldwide by transitioning it from exclusively Direct Sales to Indirect Channel Distribution, thereby expanding sales by almost 50%.
As VP at Toshiba, Mr. Geruson realigned product design and reprioritized engineering activities to reflect U.S. market requirements, doubling market share from 11% to 22% and spurring the notebook computer business from 5th place to the #1 share position.
Mr. Geruson completed 3 graduate programs at Oxford University, including a PhD in Economics and served on the research faculty at Harvard Business School, where he wrote A Theory of Market Strategy (Oxford University Press, 1992), a book used by business schools.