Dr. Richard G. Caro has over 30 years of experience at the intersection of technology and business — as startup CEO; startup CTO; scientist/inventor; angel investor; and advisor to emerging growth companies in fields such as medical devices; communications; digital health; photonics; & cleantech.
Since 2004, Richard has been CEO of TangibleFuture, Inc., an interventional management consultancy which he founded to help business leaders and entrepreneurs turn technological innovation into profitable businesses faster, and with less consumption of capital, than they would otherwise do.
From 1986 to 1999 Richard held operational roles in high tech companies in Silicon Valley and Boston. He was CEO (founder) of Vital Insite, a venture-backed, medical device start-up, developing noninvasive monitoring products; Engineering Program Manager at Coherent, one of the world’s largest laser manufacturers; and CTO (employee #5) of Summit Technology, a pioneer in the laser refractive surgery (LASIK) business. Before entering industry, he was a member of the research staff at Stanford University.
Immediately prior to founding TangibleFuture, Richard was Managing Director at RHK, a provider of advisory services to the communications industry, where he led consulting engagements with multinational businesses such as Intel, and Carl Zeiss; research institutions such as Battelle, and Sarnoff Corporation; and a variety of emerging startup companies.
Richard has been responsible for the development of a number of successful products, and has 24 issued patents. In addition to his work with TangibleFuture, he is an occasional angel investor; and is co-founder of Tech-enhanced Life, PBC. — a project exploring the intersection of aging and technology, with the mission of improving the quality of older adults and their families.
Dr. Caro has particular expertise in the process of transforming technical innovation into profitable businesses. He has been a frequent mentor in business plan competitions at UC Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and the Cleantech Open; was a member of the “Entrepreneur in Readiness” program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 2008 to 2012; and in 2013 & 2015 was a mentor in Steve Blank’s course at UCSF: Lean Launchpad for Life Sciences & Healthcare. In 2017 he was the industry expert on a startup team that was selected for, and graduated from, the NIH I-Corps program.
Born and raised in Australia, Richard received a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree from Melbourne University, Australia (1977), and a D.Phil. in experimental physics from Oxford University (1982) — where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 1982 he was awarded an IBM post-doctoral fellowship to work at Stanford University, and migrated to the USA where he has lived ever since.
Richard writes (infrequently) about his current business and technology interests at www.sciencetoprofitsblog.com