Richard Schroth likes to ask CEOs a rather unusual question: How much does it cost to protect this company? The answer, or the lack of one, tells Schroth all he needs to know. "They always give me a blank stare; they usually don't even know what I mean," he says. "The area of security is the most mismanaged, out-of-control and uncoordinated element of most organizations. There is no central person in charge of it, and I find this dysfunctionality a real problem. It actually makes corporations much more vulnerable than they've ever been before." Schroth, who is CEO, chairman and the one-man show that is Executive Insights, is considered to be one of the most highly innovative thought leaders on corporate technology strategy in the world. "Richard Schroth has been a perennial thought leader in technology strategy for more than 25 years," says James Champy, chairman of consulting at Perot Systems Corporation. Champy, who worked with him when Schroth was chief technology officer at Perot Systems, nominated him for this year's Top 25 award. Schroth has been a partner with CSC, the chief technology officer of Marriott Corporation and the executive director of information systems for New York State under Mario Cuomo. He is also a senior Fulbright scholar in the area of information science and security, a major focus of his work right now.
"I'm spending a lot of time doing research around the area of protecting the corporation's digital reputation," Schroth says. "This is the coordination of all the pieces—physical security, IT security and risk assessment—that go into protecting a corporation. This is an area where we haven't asked enough questions. I've done about five major corporate protection reviews at what I would consider top-notch companies, and all of my reviews have been critical."
For the most part, Schroth works exclusively with C-level executives at Fortune 50 companies. He doesn't advertise and doesn't even have a Web site, relying instead on referrals and word-of-mouth. He works almost exclusively on retainer, and says he likes to think of himself as a third-party, independent adviser.
"I help CEOs see the technology initiatives that they have taken on from a different perspective, and I challenge their intuitions. My job is to find a way to re-energize and re-invigorate the IT function. We haven't given enough attention to the innovation side of this."
Schroth, who doesn't produce reports or strategy documents for his clients, says he views himself more of "change agent" in an organization. "I love to identify new business trends and then find ways technology can help facilitate those changes," he says.
One area he's doing exactly that is as chairman of the advisory board with a start-up company called bidEup, which bills itself as the world's first automated legally binding online real estate marketplace. Founded by a title attorney who was frustrated by the fact that online transactions over $500 weren't legal without a signature, the company offers new technology that authenticates users, creates electronic signatures and executes real estate contracts digitally. "I call this the American Dream 2.0," Schroth says. "This is how homes will be sold in the future. This is big stuff, and I think this eventually could fundamentally change the way all commerce is done on the Internet."
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