Ronald B. Richard

Bio

Over the past 30 years, Ronn Richard has held a variety of senior management positions in government, the private sector, and the nonprofit sector.

From 2003 – 2023, Mr. Richard served as president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation. The Cleveland Foundation is the nation’s oldest community foundation with approximately $3 billion in assets, and it provides over $125 million in yearly grant support to local nonprofit organizations in Greater Cleveland. During his tenure at the foundation, its endowment and grantmaking were doubled, and fundraising increased by 600%. In addition, he led numerous major initiatives in the areas of public-school reform, mastery-based arts for K-12 students, leadership development, social services, and energy and the environment.

Prior to joining the foundation, Mr. Richard was managing director and chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital fund. In this role, he worked to ensure the prompt and effective delivery of new technologies to the U.S. intelligence community.

Before joining In-Q-Tel, Mr. Richard spent 13 years at Panasonic in key management positions, including president of the company’s North American research and development operations; president of Panasonic Home & Commercial Products Company, a major sales and marketing division of Panasonic USA; president of Panasonic Strategic Ventures Company, in charge of mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliances; vice president for planning, technology, and public affairs, which included heading up Panasonic's corporate philanthropy; and vice president for Internet business development.

From 1983 to 1988, Mr. Richard was a career U.S. Foreign Service officer, serving at the American consulate general in Osaka/Kobe, Japan, and as a desk officer for North Korean, Greek and Turkish affairs, respectively, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. He was also a Pearson Program fellow in San Francisco, where he researched and reported on U.S.-East Asian and U.S.-Latin American trade, investment flows and technology transfers.

Mr. Richard began his career as director of the national public affairs program service at the nonprofit Japan Society in New York City.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Richard has served on a number of nonprofit and public sector boards. He has served on the board of trustees of Spelman College and the board of advisers of the Landegger Program in International Business Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He was a visiting professor for international business at Bennett College in North Carolina during the spring 2003 semester, and in 2012 he was a scholar in residence at the University of Arkansas’ Clinton School of Public Service. He was the founding chairman and has served for many years on the board of trustees of the International Biomedical Research Alliance, an academic joint venture between NIH-Oxford and Cambridge universities. Mr. Richard is a former member of the board of the Council on Foundations, Hispanics in Philanthropy, Global Cleveland, and NewBridge Cleveland Center for Arts & Technology. He was the founding chairman of the board of the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine, and of the Evergreen Cooperative Corporation. He serves on the board of directors of the United Way of Greater Cleveland. In January 2009 he was appointed by then-Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland as Infrastructure Czar, overseeing the expenditure of federal stimulus funds in the state. During the administration of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, he served on the Jobs Ohio oversight board.

Mr. Richard has also served for many years on several corporate boards. He has served on the board of the public biopharmaceutical company Emergent BioSolutions for more than 19 years and has been the lead independent director for much of that time. He also currently serves on the boards of Convelo and Folio Photonics, both Cleveland-based startup companies that he helped to establish.

Mr. Richard holds a master’s degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a bachelor’s degree in American history and Japanese studies from Washington University in St. Louis, and honorary doctorates from Notre Dame College, Baldwin Wallace University, and the Northeast Ohio Medical University. He is a recipient of the African American President’s Council Champion Award for his work in inclusive economic development. In 2007, he received Wheaton College’s Otis Award for Social Justice (previous recipients include Sen. Edward Kennedy, Gloria Steinem, and Marian Wright Edelman). Mr. Richard was inducted into Hiram College’s Garfield Society, the college’s highest honor, and received Entrepreneurs for Sustainability’s 2007 Champion of Sustainability award. In 2014, Mr. Richard received Case Western Reserve University’s President’s Award for Visionary Achievement. In 2017, Mr. Richard received the Council on Foundations’ Distinguished Service Award, which celebrates individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of philanthropy, and he was also inducted into the Northeast Ohio Business Hall of Fame. Mr. Richard was named 2018’s most powerful person in Northeast Ohio Cleveland Magazine’s Community Leader Power 100 list. In 2023, Mr. Richard received the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s Richard Shatten Professional Leadership Award which honors individuals who have had considerable impact in the Greater Cleveland community.

Mr. Richard is married to Bess Rodriguez, an artist, and has two children, Susanna and Nicholas, who is a U.S. Foreign Service officer.