In the course of his international career Richard Straub held various executive line and staff positions in IBM such as Assistant General Manager PC Marketing for IBM Europe based in Paris, Chief Learning Officer in the US with global responsibility and Director of Learning Solutions for Europe, Middle-East and Africa.
He is currently senior advisor to the Chairman of IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa, Secretary General of the European Learning Industry Group (ELIG) and Director of Development and CLIP (Corporate Learning Improvement Process) at the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). He is also President of the recently formed “Peter Drucker Society of Austria”.
For the last 10 years he has been deeply involved in European Union level industry initiatives in the area of skills, lifelong learning and innovation in roles such as President of the European Career Space Consortium (ICT skills and new University curricula required for the 21st Century Economy), the Living Labs Policy Group and Chair of the Open Innovation Strategy Group with member such as Nokia, Intel, BT, IBM and SAP.
As a thought leader at the intersection of Academia and Business he is a keynote speaker at international conferences and member of business school boards. He has been named “Visiting Executive” at the Helsinki School of Economics, a new advisory role with focus on industry/academia linkages.