Josef T. Ruef – President & CEO; Co-Founder

Joe Ruef has been involved in the business of electronic component distribution for over fourteen years. He has been recognized as a thought leader on the role of the secondary marketplace, as well as for his anti-counterfeiting best practices. His experience in component trading, evaluation and quality assurance provides nuanced insights in the complexities of the secondary marketplace. Prior to Verical, Ruef was a member of the executive team at Velocity Electronics, where he oversaw brand development, sales and quality control. During his tenure, net sales grew at seven times the growth rate of the overall market, despite a broad industry downturn. He also served as a consultant to Trading Hubs (later known as eHitex), the electronics industry’s first generation HP-led B2B marketplace. Joe has a BA in English from the University of California at Berkeley.

John P. Brown – VP, Marketing & Strategy; Co-Founder

John Brown brings to Verical a wide range of experience in operations, as well as the management of information networks linking organizations. In his last role, he presented management best-practices to senior executive teams of Global 2000 companies at the Corporate Executive Board. Brown also served on the transition team at the Department of Homeland Security in its efforts to build a data-sharing platform between elements of the intelligence community to state and local governments. And earlier in his career, he was an artillery officer in the United States Marine Corps. Brown is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and holds a BA in history from Harvard University, an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Chris Cookson – VP, Supply Chain & Operations

Chris Cookson brings to Verical over 20 years of experience and thought leadership in supply chain and operations. Prior to Verical, he served as Vice President of Global Supply Chain Solutions for Solectron. In this role he was responsible for driving collaborative supply chain transformation programs with Solectron’s most important customers; bringing best practices and new business models to transform the end-to-end supply chain. Previously Cookson spent seven years with Accenture where he played a leadership role in both the supply chain practice and the high tech vertical. With Accenture, he focused exclusively on driving transformation programs for many of the world’s leading high tech companies. Earlier in his career, Cookson spent eight years in a leadership role with Computer Sciences Corporation’s supply chain management practice, working across a variety of industries. He has served on the boards of the Eli Broad School of Business, Center for the Leadership of the Digital Enterprise at MSU; Stanford’s Supply Chain Forum and the Electronics Supply Chain Association. He holds a bachelor of sciences degree in mechanical engineering from Leeds University and an MBA from Cranfield University, both in the United Kingdom.

Josef T. Ruef

John P. Brown

Hooks Johnston – General Partner, Valhalla Partners

Kiran Hebbar – Partner, Valhalla Partners