Streetbrief was founded in 2008.  As a veteran of the technology industry and the finance industry, Richard is a Chartered Financial Analyst, and has been a fierce advocate of innovative, analytically deep and thorough work.  This work is fundamentally focused on answering the question: “How do we improve this by making it more simple”?

In the early 1980s, stagflation (high unemployment and high inflation) was pervasive in the United States and Canada.  Richard worked on the large econometric model of the Canadian economy and was a member of the Special Studies team that was tracking and defining monetary policy focusing on crushing inflation and setting in motion the enormous economic expansion of that period.

He joined Canada’s investment banking community in the early 1990s as an analyst following technology companies, and his thorough and innovative approach to company analysis was recognized by the Street in achieving a #1 ranking for Quality of Research and #1 ranking for New Ideas.  He has 20+ years of experience building, dissecting, and fine tuning valuation models and financial statements of all kinds. 

Richard was a founding member of the Internet technology practice at two boutique investment banks.  His unique knowledge and experience in multiple technology sectors includes: Wireless telecom, Software (Social Media, Enterprise, Saas, Logistics, Supply Chain), Semiconductors, RFID, and Networking. A s a result, Richard has interacted and consulted with thousands of entrepreneurs, C-level executives, and finance executives.  This experience has been gained working in the investment community on both sides of “Wall Street”, on “Bay Street”  (Canada), as well as on “Main St.” as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, as well as Chief Salesperson and Evangelist.

In the early 1980s, stagflation (high unemployment and high inflation) was pervasive in the US and Canada.  Richard was a member of the team that worked on the large econometric model of the Canadian economy and was a key member of the Special Studies team that was tracking and defining monetary policy to crush inflation and set in motion the enormous economic expansion of that period. 

Following the Savings and Loan failures in the late 1980s, and the creation of the Resolution Trust Corp., Richard developed an innovative econometric investment model of the Canadian and US commercial real estate sectors.  The task was to define an investment methodology to systematically identify markets allowing our teams to purchase and sell commercial real estate.  This model and methodology was fundamental to winning commitments from University endowments and pension funds to allocate several billion dollars for commercial real estate investments.

His first company as co-founder was called SnowsportID, a startup company that was focused on the prevention of equipment theft in the ski and snowboarding industry using RFID technology.  This company was sold to a European based group.

As Chief Financial Officer of a Logistics software and hardware company, he raised equity capital from angels (tranches totaled $11.5mm over 4 years), authored subscription agreements, offering memorandum, term sheets, Board presentations, authored and presented to numerous venture capital investors.  In the startup environment, his critical eye for cutting operations costs, and balancing working capital commitments ensured that the company continuously made payroll.

As a marketing executive, he has been pioneering an innovative Sales 2.0 process in developing tactical marketing messages focusing on ROI.  Sales 2.0 is the use of innovative sales practices focused on creating value for both buyer and seller and combines the science of process-driven operations with the art of collaborative relationships.  This approach produces superior, predictable, repeatable business results, including revenue, decreased sales costs, and sustained competitive advantage.  The bottom line was that these messages significantly increased the success rate of getting appointments with C-level executives, allowing sales executives to quickly close that business.

Richard’s decades of investing experience has led to develop a style of value investing simply described as finding deep-value growth companies that have not yet been found by the Street.  This means that we are looking for great companies with great management teams, but have been abandoned by the Street resulting from the ongoing rationalization among Street Research Analysts.  As a result, we use publically available information to develop a forward view of the financial data into our proprietary valuation model, called SVM, or StreetBrief Valuation Model.

Richard is currently a Board member on the Austin Society of Financial Analysts, takes an active role on the audit committee, as well as the committees for the annual Forecast Dinner and the monthly speaker luncheons.