David Richards

Chairman, President, CEO and Co-founder at WANdisco

Speaker

Since co-founding the company in Silicon Valley in 2005, David has led WANdisco on a course for rapid international expansion, opening offices in the UK, Japan and China. David spearheaded WANdisco to a hugely successful listing on London Stock Exchange (WAND:LSE) and shortly after the acquisition of AltoStor, which accelerated the development of WANdisco’s first products for the Big Data market.

With over 20 years of executive experience in the software industry, David sits on a number of advisory and executive boards of Silicon Valley start-up ventures. A passionate advocate of entrepreneurship, he has established and successfully exited several highly successful Silicon Valley technology companies. David was the founder & CEO of Librados, an application integration software provider, and led the company’s acquisition by NASDAQ listed NetManage, Inc. in 2005.

David is a frequent commentator on a range of business and technology issues, appearing regularly on Bloomberg and CNBC. David holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Huddersfield.

In 2017 David was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Sheffield Hallam University in recognition of him being a champion of British technology and a passionate advocate of entrepreneurship.