Internet Infrastructure Expertise & Seasoned Executive
San Francisco Bay Area
- Current
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- CEO & Co-Founder at 6connect, Inc
- Board Member & Vice President at DatacenterPulse
- Technology Advisory Board Member at Panorama Capital
- Past
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- Chief Operating Officer at UnitedLayer
- VP Sales, Marketing & Development at UnitedLayer
- Co-founder; Sales, Marketing & Strategy at ASPextra
- Founder, Consultant at r2 Advisors
- Director of Corporate Development at SeniorSurfers
- Director of Business Development at TechPlanet
- Senior Consultant at Navigant Consulting
- Corporate Finance Analyst - Private Equity at Montgomery Securities
- Education
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- Colgate University
- Recommended
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16 people have recommended Richard - Connections
-
500+
connections
- Industry
- Information Technology and Services
- Websites
Richard Donaldson’s Summary
Richard has become a recognized "go to" person when a new technology is coming to market with special emphasis on technology service models.
Richard co-founded 6connect in early 2009 with 3 other co-founders to do just that - to provide unified internet infrastructure services thru a highly interactive & consultative approach that is a "cradle to grave" process. Clients, ranging from enterprises to governments, are assisted in their pursuit of the holy grail of a highly distributed "cloud-like" computing platform, aka grid, aka utility, aka managed, etc - whether that be their own infrastructure or outsourced, whether it be just advisory work or actual implementation and on-going maintenance, 6connect can help in any phase of the inevitable technology transition.
Prior to co-founding 6connect, Richard was the COO of UnitedLayer. Richard's involvement at all levels accelerated the 3 highest growth years in corporate history.
Richard joined UnitedLayer in Jan’06 thru the acquisition of ASPextra, a company he co-founded in 2004, by UnitedLayer.
Prior to ASPextra, Richard was a strategic, marketing, & business development consultant for three years. His clients ranged from startups to enterprises all of which had technologies that they were bringing to market.
Preceding the consulting practice, Richard was a business development executive for two leading venture backed IT services startups, SeniorSurfers, and TechPlanet.
Richard started his 15+ year Silicon Valley career with Montgomery Securities as an analyst in the private equity group.
Richard hold a B.A. from Colgate University.
Richard is a frequent speaker on technology, marketing and strategy.
Richard grew up in Minnesota, lived and worked in Europe and upon receiving his B.A., packed a backpack and traveled for a few years primarily as a chef and SCUBA/Ski instructor before landing in the Bay Area. Richard can be found swimming in the Bay regularly training for triathlons.
Richard Donaldson’s Specialties:
Strategy/Mktg - idea creation to execution, change management and "fresh-eye" perspectives, brand building, messaging, campaign design & execution, collateral development
Business Development - lead generation, contract negotiation, alliance building, cross-team communications, large rolodex, economic modeling, pitched many VC & PE firms.
Ops - systematization and integration for replication, scaling up a business, hands-on experience in wired, wireless, internet and HW development
Richard Donaldson’s Experience
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CEO & Co-Founder
6connect, Inc
(Privately Held; Internet industry)
March 2009 — Present (9 months)
6connect will become a global provider of managed infrastructure services. Our team will deploy, manage and further automate our Holistically Integrated Virtual Environment(s) (HIVEs) into pre-existing datacenters with initial emphasis on “retail” datacenters. The “HIVE” can be easily deployed into existing datacenters enabling the datacenter owner/operator to a) offer higher margin managed/cloud services to their customers, and b) plug in facility tools for monitoring infrastructure (e.g., electrical, cooling, environmental), and c) centralize all operations onto one unified platform.
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Board Member & Vice President
DatacenterPulse
(Information Technology and Services industry)
October 2008 — Present (1 year 2 months)
DatacenterPulse (DCP) is a growing, non-profit, datacenter industry organization founded on the principles of sharing best practices amongst its exclusive membership. Founded in late 2008, DCP has quickly become an industry nexus for the explosive datacenter industry’s operators and influencers. DCP’s mission is to align end users and share information thereby influencing the industry to adopt energy efficiency and best practices.
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Technology Advisory Board Member
Panorama Capital
(Public Company; JPM; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
January 2008 — Present (1 year 11 months)
Member of TAB for Panorama's technology investment professionals. On going conversation about technical trends throughout the industry; vetting of potential technical investments; searching out and introducing technologies compatible to Panorama's investment funds' focus.
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Chief Operating Officer
UnitedLayer
(Privately Held; Information Technology and Services industry)
January 2008 — March 2009 (1 year 3 months)
Oversaw the day to day operations of UnitedLayer. Company doubled in size during 2008 and was poised to be amongst Bay Area's Fastest growing companies for a second year running.
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VP Sales, Marketing & Development
UnitedLayer
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
January 2006 — December 2007 (2 years )
Richard joined UnitedLayer Jan’06 thru the merger of ASPextra into UnitedLayer. Richard was a co-founder and managing partner of ASPextra, a leading managed services provider headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area and servicing clients around the globe. Since joining UnitedLayer, Richard has successfully grown UnitedLayer’s sales, marketing and optimized services delivery, all resulting in doubling the size of the company in all areas along with implementing many processes to help scale the business. Richard developed the "Technocratic Oath" - "We will do no technical harm" - and has set the company up to potentially double in size again in 2008.
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Co-founder; Sales, Marketing & Strategy
ASPextra
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
February 2004 — January 2006 (2 years )
Richard Donaldson is a co-founder and Managing Partner of ASPextra, a leading managed services provider headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area servicing clients around the globe. Since co-founding ASPextra with Ed Buck, Richard and Ed have built the business from the first customer to an expanding, cash-flow positive business with 100% client retention. Richard has primarily focused on business development, marketing, finance and operations since its inception.
Ask us how we can help you...www.aspextra.net -
Founder, Consultant
r2 Advisors
(Privately Held; Myself Only; Information Technology and Services industry)
January 2002 — February 2004 (2 years 2 months)
Mission statement: Enabling businesses of all sizes to clarify their mission, quantify their business case, evangelize their value proposition and then execute their strategies in the real world
boxIT (www.boxITllc.com) San Francisco, CA
Ikena Corporation (www.ikenacorp.com) San Francisco, CA
Vietnam Post & Telecommunications Corp (www.vnpt.com.vn) Hanoi, Vietnam
InVision Technologies (www.invision-tech.com) Newark, CA
FreeWay Entertainment (www.freewayentertainment.com) San Francisco, CA
New Visual Corporation (www.newvisual.com) San Diego, CA
LaConner Technologies (www.laconner.com) Seattle, WA -
Director of Corporate Development
SeniorSurfers
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
October 2000 — November 2001 (1 year 2 months)
Mission statement: SeniorSurfers was to become the pre-eminent educational company, serving adults 55+ by training them in the use of computers, the Internet and evolving technologies. $4M Series-A funding provided by St. Paul Venture Capital (Sept.’00)
• First Business Executive hire (subsequent to CEO); reporting directly to CEO (9th employee)
• Created, planned and executed all direct and indirect channel strategies
• Identified, initiated and cultivated partnership with Cable & Wireless’ A-Service division to mitigate the burden of IT infrastructure development vis-à-vis SurferLab deployment.
• Identified and structured deal development stage/discussions with: Large Consumer Retailers – Sears and H&R Block, Workforce Development – NCOA and Manpower.,
Online Content Providers – eBay, Intuit and Adobe, Adult Community Developers & Managers –JF Shea, Del Webb and Marriott,Washington-based Congressional leaders & Non-Profits, International Firms – Japan, England & Canada,. -
Director of Business Development
TechPlanet
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
September 1999 — October 2000 (1 year 2 months)
Mission statement: TechPlanet was to become the leading technology consulting company exclusively serving small business. Services include hardware and software purchase and installation, networking, and maintenance and support. Raised $15 million in a Series B round of financing in Feb’00.
• Established and executed corporate strategy and associated alliances.
• Worked directly with CEO, CFO, VP of Marketing and VP of Business Development.
• Grew revenue from $1M 12-month run rate to an approximate $10M 12-month run rate in 6 months.
• Identified, structured and then developed deals resulting in agreements or LOI/MOUs with:
ISP’s - Concentric, Verio, Internet Connect, etc.,
CLEC’s - Northpoint, Covad, etc.,
ASP’s - Stamps.com, Mimeo.com, WebEx, etc.,
Hardware OEM’s - Gateway, Dell, Netopia, etc., and
Content Providers - Excite@Work, smalloffice.com, etc. -
Senior Consultant
Navigant Consulting
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; Legal Services industry)
May 1998 — September 1999 (1 year 5 months)
• Managed and directed segments of office’s largest revenue producing case, billing over $1M per year.
• Performed multiple cost analyses, cost projections, domestic and global market analyses.
• Database creation and management (MS Access).
• Managed teams of up to 6 Consultants.
• Other areas of active participation included: Environmental and Intellectual Property’s practice development, office-wide infrastructure development/enhancement and creating outside technical training curriculums. -
Corporate Finance Analyst - Private Equity
Montgomery Securities
(Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Investment Banking industry)
April 1997 — March 1998 (1 year )
• Analyzed and sought relationships with over 95 Venture Capital/LBO firms through direct contact and leveraging Internet-based research.
• Developed relationships to leverage as Investment Banking opportunities.
• Created a new Statistical Analyst position due to work generated.
Richard Donaldson’s Education
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Colgate University
BA , International Relations & Economics , January 1989 — May 1992
