Rich Geruson, Director

Rich Geruson is a member of the Board of Directors of ViVOtech. As a Senior Executive and General Manager, Rich Geruson has rapidly grown Nokia’s handset business in the Americas, IBM’s North American networking business and Toshiba’s laptop business in the Americas.  Most recently as CEO of the start-up VoiceSignal, Rich rapidly built the business to a volume of over a quarter billion handsets.  Rich has also created success for numerous clients while directing consulting projects at McKinsey & Company. At present Rich is an investor, an advisor to the venture and investment community, an advisor to both start up and large public companies, and serves on numerous Boards and Advisory Boards.

As CEO of VoiceSignal, Rich built the world leader in voice-enabled mobile search and other mobile voice solutions.  Within a year and a half of Rich’s arrival, VoiceSignal turned profitable.  In less than 4 years after arriving at VoiceSignal, Rich increased shareholder value over 10-fold culminating in the sale of the business for a multiple of more than 12 times revenue.

As the Senior Vice President of Nokia Mobile Phones in the Americas.  In 5 years Rich grew the Americas handset business 10-fold to $6.5 billion and tripled its market share.  This growth not only catapulted Nokia to # 1 market share in the US but also, for the first time, the #1 share in the world.  Nokia’s brand became the 5th most valuable brand in the world and the # 1 non-US brand in the world. 

At IBM, Rich was one of the youngest Vice President/General Managers.  He stimulated rapid business growth by designing, developing and launching IBM’s first distribution channels for networking products worldwide.

As Vice President at Toshiba Americas, Rich doubled market share in mobile PCs from 11% to 22%, taking the business from market share rank of #5 to #1 in less than 4 years. 

Rich has been awarded three graduate degrees from Oxford University including a Doctorate from the Sub-faculty of Economics.  He was also a member of the research faculty at Harvard Business School, where he completed the highly regarded book: A Theory of Market Strategy, published by Oxford University Press.