Wisdom Business Advisors
Real World Business Advice
20 Beth Drive, Richboro, PA 18954,
T:215-942-9084, M: 267-994-1749, rsolo@wisdomadvisors.com, @rsolo20, www.linkedin.com/in/robertsolomon/
Proven leader, innovator and innovation expert, manager and builder of successful large and small international organizations in turnaround, startup and large company environments. Senior Executive, serial entrepreneur/intrapreneur (headed 4 venture backed companies), Educator, Mentor, Coach, Inventor, Corporate and Investor Advisor and intellectual Property Expert. I am ready to take a role as a C-level executive – CEO, President, CTO or EVP. I will also consider a position in venture investment or management consulting.
I have guided organizations in the development of innovative business models, strategies and technologies. My teams have created systems that provide useful/actionable information from structured/unstructured data via data mining, sophisticated analytics, synchronization, and OLAP tools. My teams have also developed outstanding data communications and wireless products, as well as the top global public gaming platform and systems.
- Led/built World-class technology organizations—Praxis International, GTECH Corporation, Digital Equipment (DEC), Apollo Computer, Computervision, Datapoint.
- Flexible and adaptable leadership style enabling effective management in fast changing markets
- Enterprise Software Product Expert
- Lean method Expert (Steve Blank et al)
- Consistently able to attract and retain critical staff
- Successfully managed all phases of corporate growth.
- Captured investor interest and millions of dollars in funding—successfully raised venture funds 3 times, with established investors (Goldman Sachs) and Angels. Effectively represented companies and their technology concepts with investors, analysts, and M&A candidates.
- Spearheaded successful turnaround initiatives for faltering organizations.
- Able to quickly evaluate existing teams, markets, plans and processes, determine the holes, fix them and get things back on track. Adept at putting together integrated teams, plans and processes necessary to successfully bring products to the marketplace. Managed P&Ls exceeding $300 million.
- Focused on culture and getting the right people into the right positions. Created innovative career-development plans and compensation plans. Developed leaders who have advanced to executive management positions with leading organizations, such as EMC, Storage Networks, Scientific Games, Attivio, Hong Kong Jockey Club
- Experienced in leading complex simultaneous projects and geographically dispersed teams.
- Developed and managed strategic relationships and business channels —OEM, VAR, and technology. Closed deals with Amdahl; closed/managed key accounts including BankBoston, Wachovia, UBS, The Gap, VISA, Applied Materials, Lucent, CSC, U.S. Army. Closed/managed $30 million (per year) with Spanish National Lottery. Managed the $400M Bell Laboratories account for DEC.
- Experienced venture analyst and investor
- Experienced buy side/sell side technology transfer expert
- Led software engineering programs and commercialization projects that transformed concepts into viable market products—with major market leaders, start-ups, and technology innovators.
Experience and Accomplishments
Stealth Fashion Designer, March 2015 – present
Advisor to an emerging high end fashion designer. Working on business issues and go to market strategies.
Instamour, Inc., April 2014 – present
Member of Board of Directors for a unique social website focused on providing safe and secure person to person relationships facilitated by live video. We have grown to nearly 100,000 users in the last 3 months.
Designed and teach two courses for a joint graduate program (Fox Business School/College of Engineering) in Engineering Management. I teach a required graduate course on the Principles of Innovation Management and a graduate course in Finance for Technologists.
Wisdom Business Advisors, LLC. Richboro, PA July 2000 – present
CEO and Principal
- advisor to established and emerging technology companies
- Provide strategic and tactical advice for venture investors, perform business and technology due diligence
- Provided strategic IP advice, led (and prevailed in) copyright litigation matter, prosecute patent applications, provide patent litigation support, advise clients regarding the protection of their IP assets including patents, copyrights and trademarks, advise clients on commercialization, business planning and funding.
- Consult to small to medium-sized companies and investor groups, providing expert analysis on technology, business-plan development, funding strategies, VC relationships, and business operations.
- Typical assignments:
- Software services company (Rhode Island): Guided management team in product-commercialization strategy and VC-funding application; critiqued business plan.
- Alternative energy resources company (international): working with management to develop corporate strategy and product rollout; acting in a variety of executive roles; active board advisor/member.
- Venture capital firms (Pennsylvania): Technology and business assessments and due diligence of potential investments.
- Soros Private Equity Partners: Evaluate technology and market potential for technology companies. Recommendations resulted in $10MM investment in an enterprise application-integration company; $85MM investment in enterprise web-services company; and multiple decisions not to invest.
University Science Center QED Proof-of-Concept Program Business Advisor to Automatic Generation of EEG Reports Using Deep Learning June 2013 – present
Provide strategic and tactical business advice to a startup focused on automating the analysis of EEG results. Our efforts led to winning a $100k investment from the University Science Center that is enabling the new company to build an MVP and validate their business/product idea.
Advisor to the Investors of Smart Structures, Inc. Jan 2013 – present
Brought in by a board member to perform a deep dive into the company to determine the status of its business and management team. Developed a turnaround plan that is currently pending. SSI provides embedded infrastructure monitoring systems that provide dynamic information regarding the condition of support structures (e.g., concrete piles) for bridges, tunnels and many other construction components.
Omniscient Analytics October 2013 – present
Acting Chief Operating Officer for a new approach to providing actionable business analytics using a conversational user interface, machine learning and natural language processing.
Guiding Technologies Corporation, Philadelphia, PA May 2012-May 2013
President, CEO and co-founder of a health IT company developing a system (app and intelligent cloud backend) for delivering advanced autism therapy. Assisted in obtaining a $150k NSF Grant, implemented lean startup methodology, established relationship with international influencer group, established relationships with key investor groups (VCs and Angels), focused/directed startup team to develop a minimum viable product (MVP), developed concept for a simulation that allowed early validation of product concepts in advance of the availability of the MVP, personally took responsibility for customer development efforts, completed commercialization section for SBIR Phase II NSF grant, negotiated very favorable licensing arrangement with Temple University (company was a spinout based on initial research performed at TU), succeeded in getting a leading local technology periodical to run a great story on the company and what we were trying to accomplish.
Choosito!, Philadelphia, PA May 2013 – October 2013
Member of Board of Advisors, advise founder and CEO regarding business, technology, operations and fundraising issues.
Choosito! has developed a unique system that provides curation of resources (educational, corporate, etc.). Choosito! Has developed a search engine (utilizing advanced natural language (NLP) and machine learning technology) that can provide search results based upon a searcher’s characteristics. For example, initially the company is targeting the educational market and provides a curated ecosystem that allows students and teachers to find highly relevant topic specific information geared to the user’s grade level.
Linkcycle, Cambridge, MA October 2011-present
Member of Board of Advisors, advise founder and CEO regarding business, technology, operations and fundraising issues.
LinkCycle uses data science to help large manufacturing companies dramatically reduce production
costs. Instead of installing submeters or conducting facility audits, their algorithms identify cost saving opportunities using only readily available data -- without ever having to step foot in the plant! Their customers include 4 Fortune 500 companies, one of which they provided savings of $1M on their annual electricity bill of $5M in one of their facilities.
Volpe and Koenig, PC Philadelphia, PA July 2007 – March 2011
Intellectual Property Attorney at Top ranked Boutique IP law Firm
- Provided strategic IP advice, led (and prevailed in) copyright litigation matter, prosecute patent applications, provide patent litigation support, advise clients regarding the protection of their IP assets including patents, copyrights and trademarks, advise clients on commercialization, business planning and funding.
U-Know Software, Waltham, MA Tenure: 1 year
U-Know Software was a search engine company startup that created the first product comparison site enabling users to search for products and perform comparisons based on price, warranty, and other user specific criteria. U-Know also created the first business rule driven search engine for B2B exchanges.
President and CEO
- Led company from technology concept to viable product and successful market introduction.
- In one year, transformed market focus from B2C to B2B;
- instituted software engineering practices; developed strategic partnerships;
- gained initial funding commitment;
- brought revenue-generating product to market.
- Drove rapid progress on multiple initiatives through effective hands-on leadership of a multicultural firm.
- Revamped core technology to create the first business-driven product-information search agent.
- Shaped cohesive, bankable business plan.
- Raised $500K in VC funding.
- Prospected and closed first sale ($390K software/licensing).
- Developed strategic partnerships and joint ventures to leverage powerful search-agent technology. Partners included Barpoint.com (a Symbol Technologies spinout), Palm Computing, and a Community Area Network start-up (part of a consortium with Intel).
- Negotiated sale of the firm, that would have delivered positive return to investors and preserved all staff positions (but founder refused to sell).
Praxis International/ Computer Corporation of America Tenure: 5 years
Praxis International Corporation, Woburn, MA
Praxis was a technology company that created the first database replication product suite. This was a breakthrough product that allowed client companies to synchronize information across multiple databases (from the same or different vendors) in near real-time, thus providing consistent information in a distributed database environment.
President and Director
Led spin-off company from start-up to $5MM revenue, zero to 42 name-brand customers, and, within 2 years, successful merger with larger entity yielding excellent return for investors.
- Defined vision and set strategic direction. Directed corporate operations (sales, marketing, R&D, finance) as well as technology development and commercialization.
- Drove business initiatives in key performance areas:
- Product/brand development: Steered commercialization of core data-replication technology toward a mix of products and revenue-generating services.
- Created a leading brand in enterprise/Internet integration — OmniEnterprise.
- Developed business plan and obtained $6MM in venture funding from Goldman Sachs.
- Market penetration: Accurately predicted penetration of Microsoft SQL server products; redirected marketing and sales to capitalize on customers’ data-management needs relevant to new CRM solutions.
- Spin-off: Created new VC-backed independent company from new product areas.
Computer Corporation of America/Praxis International
CCA was the first database management systems company. It created Model 204, the highest performance dbms available on IBM mainframe computers.
Executive Vice President / Member, Executive Committee
- In key business/technology leadership role, redefined company from a legacy/maintenance-based mainframe DBMS company to an open systems-oriented product innovator.
- Directed product development, internal IT/MIS, customer service, and the technical consulting business generating $8MM in annual revenue.
- Simultaneously developed new products (the world’s first heterogeneous, bi-directional data replicator; a portable data warehouse management system; and a mass market decision support system) that resulted in 15% jump in revenue during first year of availability.
- Built cohesive entrepreneurial environment that allowed creation of new spin-off company.
- Redeployed and retrained staff of 135, converting to object-oriented development.
- Closed major acquisition including significant technology transfer component.
GTECH Corporation, West Greenwich, RI Tenure 5 years
The global leader in public gaming systems developing and operating more than half of the world’s lottery systems.
Vice President of Software / Member, Executive Committee
- Transformed a stagnant technology-services organization into a key contributor to growth and profitability for this global provider of transaction processing, networking, and back-office systems for the gaming industry.
- Directed software development, professional services, customer support, installation, pre-sales, and round-the-clock operation of 100 data centers.
- As Member of the Executive Committee, helped set strategic direction for the company.
- Headed 2 major technology-oriented M&As.
- Headed various technology transfer efforts.
- Chaired corporate technology architecture team.
- Implemented effective project management methodology that enabled design, development and deployment of up to 150 simultaneous projects with geographically dispersed teams in over 100 data centers around the world.
- Grew technology-organization revenues ten-fold, from $30MM to nearly $300MM, and grew share of total corporate revenues from 20% to 50%.
- Focused turnaround efforts in three key areas:
- Image transformation — Conceived and introduced “service first” approach to software marketing and development. Built cross-functional competencies through an innovative staff rotation program.
- Operational streamlining — Maintained a flat, entrepreneurial organization while growing professional staff from 50 to 300 in worldwide locations.
- Technology innovation — Defined and developed new state-of-the-art transaction-processing system that dramatically improved performance and ease of use while reducing maintenance costs.
- Principal player in $300MM LBO by GTECH senior management and, 18 months later, IPO that created over one billion dollars in shareholder value.
Datapoint Corporation, San Antonio, TX Tenure: 3 years
A $600 million computer and software company focused on office automation and networking.
Senior Director of Development
- Rescued faltering technology initiatives and brought viable products to market.
- Successfully developed and released major new communications product platform (LAN Gateway Server).
- Formulated Datapoint’s “standards-oriented” marketing strategy and created a new UNIX-based computer system product line.
- Defined and developed new data-communications marketing strategy based on comprehensive customer analysis and market research.
- Increased revenue over 40% during tenure.
Computervision Corporation, Bedford, MA Tenure: 1 year
The leading CAD/CAM systems company.
Director of Development
- Led database management, data-communications and database-applications product development that resulted in one of the first Product Data Management (PDM) platforms.
Apollo Computer Corporation, Chelmsford, MA Tenure: 2.5 years
The first high performance workstation company.
Engineering Manager — Federal Systems and Domain Engineering
- Co-founder and first engineering manager of group launched to focus on government computing opportunities. Redefined corporate software release activity into a planned, reproducible process.
Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, MA Tenure 4 years
One of the world’s largest computer companies. The creator of the minicomputer.
Engineering Manager
- Fast-track promotion from Software Engineer and Principal Engineer.
- Provided pre- and post-sales technical support for Fortune 1000 customers, third-party developers, and internal developers.
- Defined and developed promotional software applications and customer product-training programs.
- As part of DEC’s field organization, Headed onsite team at Bell Laboratories that generated and protected over $400MM in sales.
- Member of team that developed one of the first relational database management systems (RDBMS).
- Earned Software Excellence Achievement Award.
Early Career: Retail Management (John Wanamaker Company, Park Lane Hosiery Company) Tenure: 6 years
- Completed Executive Training Program. Exceeded all operational and sales goals.
EDUCATION
BA Economics/Urban Studies, Master’s Degree in Computer Science, JD Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Courses toward Doctorate in Decision Sciences University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
Harvard University Management By Objective (MBO) Program
AFFILIATIONS
Admitted to practice before the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (passed patent bar) in November 2007, the Pennsylvania Bar. October 2005; New Jersey Bar, November 2005.
Board of Directors, U-Know-Software 1999-2000, Praxis International 1996-1998, Fidelity Medical Systems, 1994.
Member, ACM, IEEE, ABA, PIPLA, AIPLA, IPO Corporate IP Committee, Philadelphia Bar Association Private Equity and Venture Capital Committee.
Past Member, Massachusetts Software Council. Founding Member, Rhode Island Technology Council.
Publications
A Study Guide for Problem Solving and Structured Programming (college textbook): Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
IP Monetization, The Legal Intelligencer