Rich Lindahl is a highly accomplished business leader with an outstanding record of achievement as a financial officer of publicly-traded companies.
Rich is the former Chief Financial Officer of CEB Inc., a global best practice insight and technology company with nearly $1 billion of annual revenue. He held this position from 2009 until CEB’s recent acquisition by Gartner Inc. Rich was responsible for all aspects of the company’s financial strategy, management and operations, and corporate real estate. Rich partnered with the CEO to develop long-range operating and capital allocation plans that increased equity market capitalization from $560 million to $2.6 billion. As chair of the investments & acquisitions committee, Rich provided strategic, negotiating, and financing guidance for M&A transactions, including the purchases of SHL Group (2012) and Evanta (2016) that collectively accounted for over 25% of CEB’s annual revenue. He focused his energy on improving CEB’s global operating performance, ensuring effective investor communications, optimizing finance and real estate operations, and enhancing risk management processes. Rich also served as the senior executive liaison to the Audit Committee of the CEB Board of Directors.
Rich has deep capital markets experience, having raised $46 billion in 27 separate transactions. Prior to joining CEB, he served as Senior Vice President and Treasurer of Sprint Nextel Corporation and Vice President and Treasurer of Nextel Communications, Inc. Over the course of 11 years, Rich strengthened the company’s financial position through strategic financing transactions and effective communication with market participants. He restructured Nextel’s balance sheet via innovative debt-for-equity exchanges, direct equity issuances, and opportunistic bond deals that cut outstanding debt in half, provided the catalyst for multiple credit rating upgrades, and helped spark an eight-fold increase in market capitalization. Rich also managed the debt restructuring of Nextel International (selected by IDD as Deal of the Year for Media/Telecom in 2002), which enabled 100% recovery of the company’s $1.2 billion historical investment.
Since 2013, Rich has served on the Board of Miriam’s Kitchen, Inc., a $3 million non-profit corporation providing meals and case management services to individuals in need, as well as public advocacy for solutions to end chronic homelessness in Washington, DC. He earned an M.B.A. from the Darden School at the University of Virginia and a B.A. in computer science from Dartmouth College.