Richard Suhr
About Richard Suhr
Today's growth strategies need to balance technology and capital allocation in equal measure. Step one is to understand the potential impact that Cloud, Digital, AI and Web 3.0 have on a business. Technology is enabling new entrants to reinvent traditional supply chains and customer channels at a pace we have not seen before, and with little or no barrier to entry to create new products and service models. It also affords the world’s largest companies a chance to create new orders of operating efficiency, and to exploit their existing customer and distribution advantage if they can overcome culture and governance inertia to create informed, capital and technology-led partnerships. In truth, not every company can be the next technology company. Not every company will be able to source the next generation of Quantum, Blockchain, and AI engineers needed to create their solutions. Even fewer companies will have the balance sheet strength, liquidity and investor appetite to invest fully in these technologies while they are still maturing. The new growth dilemma for most Boards is whether to invest in traditional large transformations that may take too long to create real change and shareholder value … or risk investing beyond the technology capability and experience of the organisation. Step two is to revisit the relationship with the investment capital that is powering these new technologies. The traditional differences between Institutional Capital, Private Equity and Venture are less clear. Today's investors are actively seeking opportunities to pair proven, enterprise value chains with new business models and technology. The opportunity for many of our customers is to build partnerships, products and ventures “off balance sheet” with these investment partners. As Global Managing Partner for EY Ventures, Richard is mandated to find new ways to connect Venture, Private Equity and Platform investors to solve EY’s largest customer problems. He also works closely with our largest clients to facilitate this new capital ecosystem to help them transform. Richard is a dynamic and experienced technology leader, with expertise in strategy and planning, large-scale transformation design, sales and marketing operations, as well as market development for global organisations in his leadership roles with EY, Google and Accenture. Richard is the co-founder of a technology investment company and advises a number of technology start-ups. He has served on a variety of sporting, venture and government boards. He is a member of the KEA World Class NZ Network.