George A. Riedel

George A. Riedel is the Henry B. Arthur Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the General Management Unit, where he teaches Leadership & Corporate Accountability, TOM and is an RC Section Chair.  He returns to HBS after 30 years having graduated in 1987. He is also co-leading an effort to build out an Impact Investment Fund at HBS.

He serves as an independent director on the board of CERNER (CERN) in Kansas City, MO. and is the Chairman of the Board at Infinera (INFN) in Sunnyvale, CA. and Juvare in Atlanta, GA.

He spent the last 15 years of his career in various executive and entrepreneurial roles in technology related industries (Networking, Security, Software, Media) as well as over 7 years of board level work including compensation, audit and governance committees. Most recently he was the Chairman and CEO of Cloudmark, an SF based cybersecurity firm, where he led a significant EBITDA turnaround that subsequently led to a sale to Proofpoint in 2017.

He was also the Chairman of the Board of Montreal-based Accedian Networks from 2010-2017, which was recently sold to Bridge Growth Partners and a director at Peer App in Boston, Next Docs in Philadelphia (sold to Aurea) and Blade Networks in San Jose (sold to IBM).

From 2006 to 2009, he was the CSO of Nortel Networks helping lead the turnaround.  He became President of Business Units in 2010 after the company filed, to lead the sale/restructuring of various business units through a series of transactions generating over $4B to a range of leading industry players. In 2011, he led the efforts to monetize the remaining 6500 patents and applications which led to an unprecedented transaction with Apple, Ericsson and others for $4.5B.

Prior to joining Nortel, he was VP of Strategy and M&A for Juniper Networks in Sunnyvale, CA from 2003-2006, developing a corporate growth strategy and then leading a series of acquisitions, most notably Netscreen; investing over $5B in M&A efforts that doubled the size and strategically repositioned the company.

After HBS, he joined McKinsey & Co where he rose to a Senior Partner spending 15 years at the Firm leading practices and serving clients in the telecom, media and technology sectors while living in both Asia Pacific and North America. After graduating from the University of Virginia in 1980 with a BS (with Distinction) in Mechanical Engineering he spent the next five years working as a Petroleum Engineer for Exxon Co USA in their production department in Houston, Texas.

He lives in Weston, MA with his wife Amy.

Cases and Teaching Materials

• Riedel, George A. "Dick's Sporting Goods: Getting Out of The Gun Business (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 321-025, January 2021. View Details
• Riedel, George A. "Dick's Sporting Goods: Getting Out Of The Gun Business (A)." Harvard Business School Case 321-024, January 2021. (Revised January 2022.) View Details
• Riedel, George A. "A Tough Call: SEAL Team Leader in Kandahar (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 320-009, January 2020. View Details
• Riedel, George A. "Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age? (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 320-043, November 2019. View Details
• Riedel, George A. "A Tough Call: SEAL Team Leader in Kandahar (A)." Harvard Business School Case 320-001, January 2020. View Details
• Riedel, George A. "Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?" Harvard Business School Teaching Note 319-064, February 2019. View Details
• Riedel, George A., and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?" Harvard Business School Case 319-030, August 2018. (Revised July 2021.) View Details
• Hamermesh, Richard G., and George Riedel. "The National Football League and Brain Injuries (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 818-082, January 2018. View Details

Awards & Honors

Named a Henry B. Arthur Fellow in 2021.