Rich graduated from the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 1981. He started his professional career at Eli Lilly, where he spent seven years in various engineering and management roles at their Clinton Laboratories operations in Clinton, IN.
After receiving an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, Rich he started with AT Kearney, a management consultancy based in Chicago. Over the course of 5+ years there, he served clients in the automotive, packaging, consumer products, and oil and gas industries on the topics of growth, strategy, operations, and business improvement. Kearney was sold in 1995, after which he joined McKinsey and Company, Inc. Rich helped build McKinsey’s Operations practice and his client service was split across operations, strategy, organization, and business transformation. Rich became Managing Partner of the McKinsey’s Midwest Region (Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh), where he led 100+ partners. He was active in the community as well, serving on the Board of Directors for World Business Chicago, the Civic Committee, multiple organizations supporting the University of Chicago and not-for-profits.
He retired from McKinsey in 2017 and is now a member of the Board of Directors of Dycom Industries, where he serves as the lead director. Rich met his wife Peg at Illinois. They have three sons (two Illinois grads) and three grandchildren.
