Penguin Speakers Bureau
Biography
Rod grew up in Oklahoma and moved to California to attend Stanford, where he served as president of the combined undergraduate and graduate student bodies. Rod was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of St. Galen and worked in London for two years as a derivatives trader for Morgan Stanley.
He …
Read moreRod grew up in Oklahoma and moved to California to attend Stanford, where he served as president of the combined undergraduate and graduate student bodies. Rod was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of St. Galen and worked in London for two years as a derivatives trader for Morgan Stanley.
He started his first company, CATS Software, at age twenty-four while in grad school. He took it public ten years later and sold it for $100 million in cash and earn-outs after operating it as a public company for four years. He was a cofounder of Mergent Systems, an inferential database company that was sold for $200 million seven months after founding. Rod served as chairman of Privada Inc., a start-up which raised $37 million to develop unique private credit card processing technology for the Internet. He co-founded Emotion Inc., a pioneer in video collaboration and database technology. He is an early stage angel investor in American Legal Net, a leader in online legal forms and e-filing.
He has participated in more than 100 early-stage technology companies both through direct investments as well as through fourteen venture capital partnerships. He has been involved both in businesses that have been extremely successful and ones that did not make it. Both experiences were instructive, the former fruitful.
Rod has been active in the nonprofit world as well. He serves on the board of Environmental Defense, a global leader in designing, advocating, and implementing environmental policy solutions such as the Kyoto Protocol and the California Climate Act. He serves on the board of Jamii Bora Africa Ltd., a microlending network with 140,000 members.
On 9/11, Rod was in New York City and watched the Twin Towers burn. He was deeply moved by the experience and felt called to serve peace. He tirelessly dedicated the next four years of his life to that cause. He recruited co-author Ori Brafman to join him in building Global Peace Networks. This organization helped to start and catalyze a global decentralized network of more than one thousand CEOs working for peace and economic development. To help mobilize the network, Rod visited fifteen Middle Eastern countries and territories, and developed a passion for the region. One small circle of CEOs that came together between India and Pakistan is credited with opening the borders to citizens, trade, and travel. The two nuclear powers had been at a post-conflict standstill when the effort started. It was while working on the challenge of shaping this decentralized network that the insights came for cracking the code on how “starfish,” or decentralized networks, really work. This led to the realization that there are only two fundamental types of organizations—centralized spiders and decentralized starfish. Tiny starfish from al Qaeda to Wikipedia are now turning the world upside down. These insights led to the book THE STARFISH AND THE SPIDER: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations.
Rod was also a pioneer in the field of derivatives trading and firm-wide risk management. Coached by Nobel Laureate William F. Sharpe, Rod co-authored the first book on a new theory, “Value at Risk,” which has become the global standard for managing risk in domestic and international banking.
He loves thinking and working on issues of strategy—whether for businesses, governments, social networks, or NGOs. He likes to help people look at the world differently and to see how they, their friends, and colleagues can change the world by organizing and taking action in small circles or broader networks organized around their passions. He likes how starfish networks transfer power back to the people.
Rod has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Financial Times, Newsweek, Business Week, and other publications in many languages. He has recently appeared on FOX News, CNBC, C-SPAN, and MSNBC. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, State of the World Forum, World Technology Summit, YPO Universities, and other international events. Rod is a Top Rated YPO/CEO Speaker and has been a YPO member for twelve years.
Rod received his BA in Economics and MBA from Stanford. He lives in Palo Alto and Santa Cruz with his wife and two children.
Check out Rod Beckstrom’s website at www.beckstrom.com.
Speaking Topics
- The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
It’s a starfish world and people don’t realize it. Powerful new human networks like MySpace, Wikipedia, Craigslist, and al Qaeda are turning the business and political worlds upside down. Learn how these new decentralized or starfish-like networks actually work. Every business is affected. Acquire a new model for understanding and analyzing any organization. Learn how you can leverage the powerful new starfish principles in your business, your community, and your life. You will never look at the world the same way again. Rod has presented these ideas on FOX News, C-SPAN, and MSNBC and to top companies and CEOs around the world. These ideas are so powerful that only months after launch, this new book is already being translated into five languages and has won top awards.
- Global Warming
Why is global warming a problem and what can you do about it in your company and your life? What is your carbon footprint and how can you reduce it? How can your company capitalize on global warming business opportunities and become more sustainable? Why are sustainable companies often so profitable? How can you get there? How do carbon markets work? Why should we as a society have hope? Rod has thirteen years of experience in global warming science, policymaking, business, and investment. He is an acknowledged expert and was recently interviewed by CNBC News on what it means to be “carbon neutral.” He has served on the board of trustees of Environmental Defense since 1994 and recently came up with the idea of an Environmental Markets Network, a new national organization recently launched. He is a founder of Carbon Investments, which has helped start several large-scale carbon offset projects in Third World countries and which has invested in clean energy companies and funds.
- Passion Networking
What are your passions? What are those of the people you work with or encounter? People can perform miracles when they are organized in small circles or groups around their passions. How did twelve citizens come together in London in the late eighteenth century to start a movement that led to the end of slavery? How did a few women organize in the U.S. and start a movement to win women’s right to vote? How did eleven CEOs meeting in 2003 help launch the current peace process between India and Pakistan—opening borders, airways, trade, and telecoms where they had long been shut? Rod was a member of that original group of eleven and has studied and participated in many other amazing circles and networks on four continents. Why do some circles and networks thrive while others die? What are some of the traits of successful circles and networks? How can you start a circle? How can you build a network? Everyone has something to contribute. Learn how to unleash the unstoppable power of people’s passions.
Featured Book
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"...a compelling and important book, rich with examples of how decentralization is fundamental to the right environment..." —Pierre Omidyar, CEO, Omidyar Network; founder and chairman, eBay Inc.
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