Biography of Rod Beckstrom

When Rod was still a student at Stanford Business School, he published the first universal mathematical model for pricing interest rate and currency swaps. At the same time, he co-founded CATS Software, Inc., a risk management software company, out of his apartment with $20,000. Rod was forced to become an astute student of organizations when as Chairman and CEO he quickly grew CATS from a product idea into a worldwide company listed on the NASDAQ. He then sold the company for more than one hundred million dollars in cash and earn-outs.
 
He has continued to be on the cutting edge of organizational structures through his work with Silicon Valley companies as an angel investor and limited partner in leading venture capital funds. 
 
Outside of the business world, Rod designed and helped launch a nimble decentralized network of more than 1,300 CEOs worldwide working for peace and economic development. He also co-founded a network of Indian and Pakistani CEOs which is widely credited with finally opening the borders between the two countries in 2003.
 
Rod then used his knowledge of new network based organizational structures to co-author The Starfish and the Spider: the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. The book analyzes in an entertaining way how a new form of organizations and a new style of management, based on starfish networks, is taking the business, social and geopolitical worlds by storm.  It is the first book to explain the subtle yet incredible power of decentralized organizations. The implications for companies, leaders and the world are both profound and urgent.
 
Rod has advised government officials around the world. He has also given speeches on organizational structure, technology and leadership at the State of the World Forum, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Microsoft, Starbucks, Napster, Harvard University, Stanford University, and YPO Universities. 
 
At the urging of Nobel Laureate Dr. William F. Sharpe, Rod co-authored the first book on the risk management theory of Value at Risk, An Introduction to VAR, which is now the fundamental framework for international banking capital reserve requirements.He was the founding investor in Mergent Systems, a unique database design company which sold for two hundred million dollars seven months after founding.  Rod invested in eBay through a venture capital partnership and realized a 90,000% return on investment. 
 
Rod is passionate about clean technology and environmental markets and serves on the board of Environmental Defense. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has a BA and MBA from Stanford.