Ron Bates
Retained Executive Search Consultant


Ron Bates
Managing Principal
Executive Advantage Group

With over two decades of experience, we have proven our search process and our unique concept of personalized retained executive search in virtually every industry segment and functional discipline.

Contact us to learn how you can leverage our unique Executive Advantage to help you fill your next Mission Critical executive search.


Ron Bates is a Search Consultant with Executive Advantage Group’s Silicon Valley Office, based in Sunnyvale, California. He co-founded the firm in 2001. He is actively involved with Board of Directors and Executive level searches for early-stage and multinational companies, as well as expanding the firm's Technology Sector specialty group. Prior to Executive Advantage Group, Ron was with Heidrick & Struggles where he was a Partner based in their Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park office. Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Ron Bates was the top performing Managing Director with the retained executive search firm StratfordGroup. Ron has executed Board of Directors, Executive Management, Engineering, Sales, Marketing & Business Development searches for Management Consulting, Internet, Telecommunications, and Software Pre and Post IPO clients.

With 25 years of industry experience, Ron’s management background includes full P&L responsibility, sales management and consulting management, hardware and systems product development management roles with Hewlett-Packard, TRW, Raytheon, Mentor Graphics and Computer Vision. He has sales and engineering experienced in hardware and systems development, process assessment, IC and DSP design services, IP Core deployment, DFT/verification/emulation, semiconductor automated test platforms, custom automated test platforms, and design software consulting.

Prior to being a Partner at Heidrick & Struggles, and a Managing Director at StratfordGroup, half of Ron's career has been in sales. He's been trained in Miller Heiman's - Conceptual and Strategic Selling (i.e., "Red Flags & Blue Sheets"), Mack Hannon's - Consultative Selling, Neil Rackham's - SPIN Selling, and Holden's - Power Base Selling when he was at HP. Ron has also been trained in Target Marketing Systems' - Target Account Selling and Executive Level Selling, Mack Hannon's - Competing on Value, and Value Vision's - Value Based Selling (i.e., the competitor to Bosworth's - Solutions Selling) while at Mentor Graphics. He has also taught Executive Call Planning based on SPIN Selling, and a course Ron created and taught at Hewlett-Packard, Mentor Graphics, Computer Vision, Schlumberger, et. al., called "Critical Path Selling" an executive level sales and tactical execution training course. Ron has also coached and mentored from a sales management perspective the execution of deals that ranged in size from $100K - $10M via many of these techniques especially in his roles managing consulting sales at Mentor Graphics and Computer Vision prior to getting into Executive Search.

In addition to his sales management and consulting management background, what is most unique about Ron is that he possesses a deep technical background spanning a broad range of hardware and software technology disciplines. After obtaining a degree in Physics from the University of Oregon, and co-authoring "Far Ultraviolet Laser Resonance Raman Studies of Electronic Excitations": Advances in Laser Spectroscopy, Vol. 3, 1986, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Ron worked for companies such as Hewlett-Packard, TRW, Raytheon, Mentor Graphics and Computer Vision. From 500 MHz – 45 GHz, he has been responsible for multi-million dollar development programs ranging from waveguide, stripline, MMIC devices and antennas for satellite communications, secure military and covert satellite reconnaissance systems, threat identification, anti-missile electronics counter measures, and radar jamming systems. He has developed verification strategies for MMIC T/R modules, High Power analog, mixed-signal, ASIC, and 50 MHz - 1.5 GHz digital IC and MCM semiconductor devices used in wireline and wireless terrestrial and space based Telecommunications applications. Ron has also designed custom automated test platforms for airborne radar, electronic counter measure, avionics and flight control systems, in addition to having developed antenna characterization and production test strategies for satellite, ship and airborne antennas. He has delivered product development process assessments for technology clients engaged in Concurrent Engineering and process/workflow product development Reengineering programs. Ron has also provided product development and DSP design support to clients engaged in applications of CDMA and TDMA communications technology; JPEG, MPEG video; voice compression, electronic surveillance, PDA, paging, embedded IP and programmable core applications. He has also provided LAN/WAN network performance assessments, network design/optimization/integration services, remote network monitoring, customer premise equipment installation & maintenance client services.

The following is a partial list of public sector Technology clients Ron Bates has had the opportunity to provide service to during his 25-year career.
Advance Auto Parts Fujitsu National Semiconductor Tandem Computers
AMD Hewlett-Packard NorthropGrumman Teledyne
Amdocs  IBM Oracle Texas Instruments
Boeing ICG Communications PeopleSoft Trimble Navigation
Cisco Intel Pixelworks TRW
Deloitte & Touche Kaiser Electronics QualComm Vitesse Semiconductor
DivX Kodak Raytheon Western Digital
ECI Telecom Lockheed Martin Rockwell Semiconductor Xerox
Electro Scientific Industries LSI Logic Schlumberger X-Rite
Ericsson Mentor Graphics Siemens Yellowbook USA
Ernst & Young Motorola Sun Microsystems Zhone Technologies

With +44,000 direct contacts on on-line professional networking platforms, Ron has been referred to as "the most connected man on Earth". View his detailed networking profiles on LinkedIn and Ecademy. Feel free to invite Ron to connect with you on the on-line networking platforms you use.

Also a recognized expert in on-line networking, personal branding and building a personal Internet presence, Ron has been an invited speaker at venues such as the Human Capital Institute, Marketing Executive Networking Group, British America Business Council, Expert Connections, Business of Success Radio is a regular guest on Netshare’s "Ask the Coach", and most recently Ron's interview was included in Leadership Without Borders: Successful Strategies From World-Class Leaders, by Ed Cohen, © 2007 John Wiley & Sons. To view a partial list of articles Ron has published click here.

To learn more about Ron, simply do a Google search on: ron bates