Rick Genzer

Director, Portfolio Success

For 30 years before joining Ben Franklin in 2016, Rick was an accomplished founding team member, senior executive and management consultant with direct involvement in many entrepreneurial endeavors. He has played many key roles in the commercialization of leading-edge products/technologies/services in companies ranging in scope from just a single individual to Fortune 50 scale. As part of his prior commercialization experience, Rick has had direct involvement in a variety of private equity transactions, in a wide range of market sectors. Direct participation in these transactions include acquisitions by a larger entity (twice at sell side, once as buy side), significant financings (about 30 on both buy and sell sides) and transactional analysis (about 30 from the buyer’s perspective). Rick has been an investor in a private equity fund and has served/participated on several non-profit and for-profit boards.

Since joining Ben Franklin, Rick has worked with over 150 companies and ultimately invested in over 20. He has also participated in multiple exits and debt conversions. His long and varied experience as an entrepreneur affords Rick a unique perspective on investing as well as deep domain expertise that can be leveraged assisting current and future portfolio companies. Rick is actively involved with many of his 40+ portfolio companies as a board observer and/or as an informal advisor. Rick has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland and in his spare time, he enjoys making/building things.