“If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” - Isaac Newton. 

 

Rob is a technologist, engineer, serial entrepreneur, coach, advisor, husband and proud father of two small kids who remind him daily that his past is mostly irrelevant to their future. He is equally excited and terrified by this future and is passionate about ways to engineer our dreams through creating experiments, tools, content, and networks that can shape an equitable and inclusive future of abundance for all.

He is currently a Strategic Advisor, Mentor, and Coach, facilitating programs on technology, innovation, and intrapreneurship at the Nomura-SRI-Innovation Center and a think tank on the Future of Learning for CompTIA.

On the side, he is developing experiments on future opportunities and implications of the Metaverse and actively experimenting with artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies for the future of work, education, and leadership, while learning from some of the greatest leadership and executive coaches today as an original member of 100Coaches (Marshall Goldsmith’s leadership cohort).

Previously, as Associate Founder and former CEO of Singularity University (SU), Rob grew the institution to become a global leader for understanding exponential technologies and transformation.  

Rob has been a director on several boards including a public director at Harman (HAR) to assist with their tech transformation, ultimately resulting in the ~$8 Billion acquisition by Samsung in 2016.

He co-founded Velocity11 in 1999, building automation and robotics for cancer research and drug discovery to later be acquired by Agilent Technologies in 2007, where he traded the CEO role for a General Manager role attempting to be a catalyst for change at a big company. He gave up in 2009 to go surfing.

He holds degrees in Mechanical, Materials Science and Manufacturing Systems Engineering from UC Davis and Stanford University.

His mission is to build bridges to an amazing future.