Ron Young
CEO, MarketingSuite.com
Managing Director, Sage San Francisco

Ron Young is an award-winning business pioneer with over 30 years' of innovative leadership at Yipes, Nokia, AT&T, BofA, Electronic Arts, CVS and Levi's. He combines a high-tech marketer's drive for product innovation, a packaged-goods marketer's nose for branding and differentiation and a retail marketer's ability to generate immediate sales.

Sage's Chairman Emeritus has founded and is incubating a new company, MarketingSuite.com. Watch on this site for details about this exciting new SaaS-based marketing services company.

Prior to serving as Chairman of Sage, Ron was the Founding Chairman of the Board of the Metro Ethernet Forum, the world-wide standards body advancing the fastest growing technology in telecom; Co-Founder of Yipes, the world's first metro Ethernet service provider which grew from 1st sale in '00 to contracted revenue of $247 mil in '02 and Founder of Met-Net, a pure-play, next-gen metro Ethernet service provider (both companies have been repeated finalists in Service Provider of the Year Awards). Ron's previous innovations include: the first commercial deployment of DSL service in America, while the Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Nokia High Speed Access Products (formerly Diamond Lane Communications) - where revenues grew from 1st sale in '97 to $68 mil in '99 and $406 mil in '00; the first roll-out of data services (including the first Cisco reseller program) by any RBOC (Regional Bell Operating Company) while working for SBC (formerly Pac Bell); the first roll-outs of Transparent LAN Service (the precursor to metro Ethernet) and Frame Relay by any RBOC while working for the !nterprise division of Qwest (formerly US WEST) - where revenues grew from $1.6 mil in '91 to $750+ mil in '97; introduction of the first box-shaped software packaging (now the industry standard) while SVP Marketing of Electronic Arts; the first re-fillable plastic bottle in the US and the first unit-pricing in the drug industry while at CVS Stores; the first Radio & TV advertising for Levi's while at FCB Advertising.

Ron is the recipient of many product of the year and other industry awards including: the World Communications Award for Best New Carrier, the Interop Infrastructure Award for Best Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (Twice), Network Magazine's Product of the Year Award and similar honors from America's Network, Communications Engineering and Design, ComNet, ComputerWorld, CRN, Enterprise Systems, LocalBusiness.com, Network World, Red Herring, Tele.com, Telephony and Upside. Ron has also won over 50 advertising awards, including ADDYs, ANDY's and a Clio Award for advertising created for Levi's.

A sought-after industry spokesman, his many conference presentations include COMDEX, COMNET, SuperComm, Networld + Interop, IEC NCF, Internet World, NGN, SUPERnet, ISPCON and Opticon. Ron has been quoted extensively in newspapers, TV shows and industry trade publications, including America's Network, Business Communications Review, InfoWorld, Network World, Red Herring, Telecommunications and Telephony.

A life-long sailor, Ron placed 2nd in the World Championships and was GM of San Francisco's 1st Challenge for the America's Cup - which produced the world's first bow-ruddered boat, broadly hailed as the most innovative design in America's Cup history. Her technological descendants are now the fastest displacement sailboats on earth and hold the Trans-Atlantic, Trans-Pacific and 'Round the World records.

Ron is a member of the San Francisco, Transpac and St Francis Yacht Clubs, the Commonwealth Club and Mensa.