RICHARD STOFF | SENIOR ADVISOR

Richard Stoff is Senior Advisor to the Leadership Now Project, having previously served for 25 years as the architect and founding president of the Ohio Business Roundtable, a partnership of the chief executive officers of Ohio’s largest and most influential Fortune 1000 businesses, committed to solving the state’s most complex, long-term public policy and competitiveness challenges, thereby improving the quality of life for the citizens of the state.

Prior to founding the Roundtable, Richard served sixteen years in management consulting with two of the world’s largest professional service firms. He was elected as a Partner with Ernst & Young, directing the Firm’s public sector practice in Ohio and before that he served as a Senior Consultant with Touche Ross & Co. (now Deloitte & Touche), working with a range of clients in real estate, manufacturing, health care and government, including designing new financial systems for the City of New York in response to their years of default in the ‘70s.  He cut his teeth in government as a budget analyst with the Ohio Office of Budget and Management.

Richard was appointed to the executive workforce boards of former Ohio governors Kasich, Strickland, Taft and Voinovich. He is a long-standing board member of Jobs for America’s Graduates and he was the creator and founding chairman of BRIGHT New Leaders for Ohio Schools housed now within Ohio State University’s MBA program, which develops and trains the next generation of building principals serving high-poverty schools. He has also served with the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism, bringing leaders of business, labor and government together in a working alliance, and well as Vice Chair of Operation Respect/Don’t Laugh At Me, a national anti-bullying organization founded and inspired by artist/activist Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, with whom Richard has worked for some 30+ years.

Richard holds an MPA from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and earned his BA in political science, with honor, from Northeastern University.