Richard Birney is a Senior Advisor at Spurrier Capital Partners and Genesis Venture Capital. He advises clients in the areas of enterprise technology, cloud initiatives, and semiconductors.

Prior to joining SCP, Richard was Head of Strategic Investments at IBM and was responsible for directing IBM’s growth initiatives and investments within IBM Corporate Development.  Richard had a distinguished and illustrious career with IBM spanning 36 years, which included 16 years of investment experience, 20 years of operational experience, and broad international experience.  Among recent responsibilities at IBM during the last decade, he led a worldwide team to identify companies for strategic partnership or acquisition by IBM business units, directed growth initiatives and strategies in partnership with the private equity and venture capital industry, and developed growth initiatives in emerging geographies and technologies. Richard also served as advisor to Fortune 500 companies on IBM M&A processes.

Among his many accomplishments during the last decade, Richard developed a fund investing strategy that delivered a high internal rate of return (IRR significantly greater than 20%). In emerging geographies and technologies, Richard developed an investment strategy for IBM in China, India, Israel, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. He managed over $500 million in investments around the world and has received industry recognition for developing best practices and patents in M&A processes, making IBM a recognized leader in Corporate Development. Richard also developed strategies for IBM to compete in new technologies in mobile services, financial services, networking, cloud computing, clean technologies, and semiconductor manufacturing.

Richard is also the inventor of several advancements in computing technology, holding several patents with many foreign filings, with over 70 total filings. He has been a frequent speaker at global investment conferences.

Richard joined the Inheritance of Hope Board in 2010.