Rick Valencia
Global technology and health technology entrepreneur, corporate executive, board member, and coach
Rick Valencia is a six-time CEO who brings over 30 years of experience in both public and private companies.
Rick has founded and grown successful companies in telecom, business processing outsourcing, medical device, and digital health. He has done this as an entrepreneur with his own startups, as an intrapreneur within a large organization, and as a hired gun for VC and PE-backed companies.
Rick attributes his success to two key aspects of growing his businesses:
- Building great cultures and teams and giving the team the resources and support they need to be great.
- Instituting the tools and systems to do business planning thoughtfully and business plan execution thoroughly.
Business Highlights:
- Pioneer of two industries, Enterprise Telecom Management when the telecommunications industry was being deregulated in the 1990s and Digital Health shortly after the iPhone was launched.
- Founded and grew his first startup from one employee to over three hundred, processing over $2B in transaction volume. Clients included Starbucks, American Airlines, and the U.S. Postal Service. After growing it to $35M in revenue he sold it to a public company for an eight-figure exit.
- Founded Qualcomm Life, which grew to a $100M+ business unit of Qualcomm and a pioneer of the Digital Health industry. Secured strategic partnerships with Philips, Medtronic, Walgreens, CVS, Roche, Novartis, UnitedHealthcare, Epic, Cerner, Apple, and more.
- Founder of Qualcomm Life Fund, a $100M venture fund investing in digital health startups, and dRx Capital AG, a $100M venture fund in partnership with Novartis, investing in digital medicine startups.
- Involved in over 10 M&A transactions and integrations.
- Served on numerous public, private, and non-profit boards, including Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc., (TNDM: NASDAQ), Impedimed, Inc. (IPD: ASX), and the Global eHealth Initiative chaired by Archbishop Desmund Tutu.
- Three-time Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies in the US honoree
- Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year
Rick is a 20+ year member of Young Presidents Organization and a former Chairman, Education Chair, and Treasurer for the San Diego Coastal Chapter.
Rick lives in San Diego, CA with his wife of 40 years, Stacey. They have two adult children, Andrew and Aubrey. Rick has a passion for philanthropy, skiing, traveling, and wine.