Gerald Risk

Gerald is an entrepreneur, investor, and educator.

Gerald teaches S543, “Entrepreneurial Acquisition,” with David Dodson, Jim Ellis and Peter Kelly. This course explores the path to entrepreneurship represented by buying a company.  The course augments and draws on other courses taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business about forming and managing new enterprises. 

Gerald draws on his passion for helping young people build their leadership and entrepreneurial capabilities.  His instruction pulls from his experience in various roles as an operator, leader, mentor, board member and investor.

Currently, Gerald spends most of his time supporting entrepreneurs as an investor.  Gerald has invested in over 100 search fund or operating companies acquired through a search fund vehicle, as well as several other start-up and entrepreneur-led companies.  Through these investing activities, he currently serves on the Board of Directors of Carillon Assisted Living (provider of assisted living services in the Southeast), Datacor (ERP software for the chemical industry), National Video Monitoring (regional provider of video surveillance services), OI Infusion (infusion therapy services), Sunrun (provider of residential solar services) and QMC Telecom (wireless infrastructure provider in Latin America). 

Gerald also serves as Vice Chairman of Asurion, the world’s largest provider of technology protection services, serving more than 250 million consumers globally.  Prior to serving as Vice Chairman, he served as Asurion’s President, and as Asurion’s Chief Financial Officer prior to that.  During Gerald’s almost two decades at the company, revenue has grown from $15 million to greater than $7 billion.

He is a Trustee of the Nueva School and an investor in FARM, a social impact investment collaborative.

Gerald began his professional career with Goldman, Sachs & Co.  He holds an MBA from Stanford where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar and a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from Queen’s University in Canada.

Gerald lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two sons.