Research Triangle Business Advisors

We Bring you Sales, Marketing, Business Plan and Strategic Planning Skills

Bob De Contreras

Bob brings corporate, international and entrepreneurial experience to Research Triangle Business Advisors. His corporate experience includes 20 years working for International Business Machines. As owner of IBM’s worldwide products and services business in the Brokerages, Exchanges and Trading industry, he managed a $400 million dollar business that doubled each year under his leadership. 

In his last five years at IBM, he participated in the formation of 32 different start-up businesses seeded by IBM.  And, he led two separate worldwide studies commissioned by the U.S. Congress on the topics of the international financial markets and stock trading fairness between institutional and individual investors.

As an entrepreneur, he was an executive in three start-up companies and started a fourth. One of these start-ups, Seer Technologies, grew to over $117 million and international operations in its first 5 years of operations.

Bob was a group chairman in TEC, an international organization of CEOs, where he provided coaching and advice to a group of CEOs working together to solve their business issues.  In the past ten years, Bob has helped hundreds of CEOs, entrepreneurs and other business professionals achieve success in their businesses.  (see Testimonials)

His diverse background in a variety of executive positions including VP of Sales, VP of Marketing, VP of Consulting Services, General Manager, COO and,  CEO, have prepared Bob to bring wisdom and insight to the business consulting services provided by Research Triangle Business Advisors.

Bob volunteers in support of MBA programs at UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University as well as judge the Carolina Challenge and Duke Start-up Challenge entrepreneurial contests at these schools. Bob has been a guest lecturer in programs like business ethics, communications, and engineering management.  Bob has an MBA with a concentration in finance from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

Rich Kramarik

Rich Kramarik is currently the Founder/Managing Partner for Research Triangle Business Advisors, which provides executive coaching and mentoring services to startup and small/medium businesses. His substantial career experience in managing all facets of a business, including strategic and tactical planning, funding, and total P&L responsibility provides RTBA clients with a ‘real world’ perspective on major business issues.

His career includes Fortune 500 executive level experience in general operations, sales, marketing, engineering, and IT, with companies such as AT&T, LTV, Sprint, McCaw, and Progress Energy. He has also been an active entrepreneur with numerous startup companies, as both a founder or as a member of the founding executive team. Rich launched five East Coast data centers as part of a startup ‘outsourced managed services’ company, later sold for $200M. As CEO/Founder of JESSOFT, he developed a proprietary healthcare software solution for hospitals, which fulfilled National Cancer Institute requirements for tracking the diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients.

Rich is a co-founder and Fund Executive for the Inception Micro Angel Fund – RTP (IMAF-RTP), which is part of the North Carolina IMAF network of funds. He is also the founder and current President of the Triangle Accredited Capital Forum, a North Carolina-based network of Angel Investors, and a member of the Angel Capital Association.

Rich volunteers his support to local universities by participating in various MBA programs and initiatives, providing insight and support on case study evaluations, business plans, presentations, etc. He has an Economics degree and has also completed an extensive AT&T/MIT series of courses in the field of Information Technology. Rich and his wife live in Cary.