CTO at three start-ups with total valuations exceeding $2 billion
Ron Buell
Partner
About Me
I am a Software Professional with decades of experience in Executive Leadership, Software Engineering, Data, Product Management, and Consulting. I’m skilled at creating and executing a Product Vision, bringing a “can do” attitude to lead and motivate teams that deliver beyond expectations. As a leader and advisor, I am highly collaborative. I emphasize the importance of staying connected with all levels of the organization to forge relationships and foster high-performing teams. With my array of experience, I work with and mentor leaders to build high-functioning teams. My experience working with multiple-stage companies allows me to help organizations develop processes for the right size and stage of their company to achieve optimum technology efficiency and quality.
Experience
Executive Roles
Sounding Board, Inc. Chief Technology Officer
PAX Labs, Inc.
Senior Vice President of Software Engineering
Tribal Planet Inc.
Chief Technology Officer
Rdio
Senior Vice President of Engineering
Secude International AG
Head of R&D
Nonprofit Board Role
Lake Winnipesaukee Alliance
Board Member
Career Highlights
My tech career started after discovering my passion for software engineering while in a role for a manufacturing company where I was using terrible inventory control software. I taught myself how to program in the COBOL language and rewrote the entire program in six months, improving the performance by almost 20x. I then got a master’s degree in computer systems engineering and spent over a decade with Lotus/IBM Software Group; this set the foundation for my career by working at a large technology company with a highly developed process around innovation. I had incredible mentors who taught me the importance of building diverse teams and developing relationships throughout the organization. As a leader, these principles became tenets of my approach to building teams throughout my career, from hiring the 1st to the 230th engineer. As SVP of Engineering at Rdio, I led the technical due diligence for five different M&A opportunities, three of which we closed. I subsequently oversaw the integration of those companies’ technologies. I also helped negotiate the successful acquisition of Rdio by Pandora. As CTO of Tribal Planet, I evaluated M&A targets and performed due diligence. I oversaw the integration of previously developed IP created by Tribal Brands and Tribal Technologies into a new architecture that is still running live today. I’ve also served as an Advisor to several startups where I helped with hiring, architecture, and buy vs. build decisions.
Techquity Solutions
I enjoy helping start-ups create processes that are appropriate for their size and stage of business. I apply my experience to ensure they achieve optimal efficiency and quality given their resources and skillsets. I strive to add value by boosting investor confidence in the team’s capability of executing technology and product initiatives. I am fortunate to have decades of experience scaling technology products and organizations, as well as assessing products and teams, and I find it rewarding to apply the lessons I have learned to mentor tech leaders. I have also served as CTO for a leadership development company, where I created a strategy for developing people from lower-level leadership to highly functional senior tech executives.
Innovation & Impact
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Helped drive several acquisitions, including intense due diligence in evaluating engineering, product, and data
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Oversaw the building of a scalable architecture to handle 100M monthly active users on the OpenFeint gaming network (acquired by GREE)
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Grew the Rdio Engineering team from 25 engineers to over 100 in three years, with 40% female engineers and less than 2% attrition before our successful acquisition by Pandora
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Designed the architecture and built the technology team from scratch at Pax Labs, resulting in a robust microservice cloud-based platform and highly performant team that maintained an SLA of 99.97% uptime
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Awarded several patents around IoT development and Bluetooth low emissions communications
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Wharton Executive Education CTO Program scholarship recipient
Why Techquity?
I serendipitously discovered that Anthony Bay, my former CEO at Rdio, had founded Techquity. Upon learning about the company, its mission, and the A Team of Partners, I became very excited to join. The type of work Techquity performs are all areas that I enjoy and excel at - from performing due diligence to product vision ideation to technical leadership mentoring and coaching. It is a highly collaborative environment and an opportunity to work with some of the brightest and best minds in the industry.
Thought Leadership
Past speaking engagements:
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Twitter Flight NYC
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Big Boulder Conference