Robert J. Herbold

• Chief Operating Officer (Retired) Microsoft Corporation
• President, The Herbold Foundation
• Managing Director, Herbold Group

Robert J. (Bob) Herbold, retired executive vice president and chief operating officer of Microsoft Corporation, is the President of The Herbold Foundation, which provides fellowships to master’s and PhD students in the areas of engineering and computer science at universities throughout the country, while also supporting various non-profit organizations. He is the Managing Director of The Herbold Group and serves on the Arizona Board of Regents.

Herbold joined Microsoft in 1994 as executive vice president and chief operating officer, retiring in 2001. During his tenure in that position, he was responsible for finance, corporate marketing, market research, manufacturing and distribution, information systems, human resources, and public relations. From 2001 to 2003, Herbold worked half-time for Microsoft as Executive Vice President assisting in customer, industry, and government issues.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Herbold spent 26 years at The Procter & Gamble Company. In his last 5 years with P&G, he served as senior vice president of marketing and information services. In that role, he was responsible for the company’s worldwide marketing/brand management operations as well as all marketing related services such as media and retail promotion programs. He was also responsible for the worldwide information technology and market research organizations.

Herbold’s experiences at Microsoft and Procter & Gamble were the basis of an article he published in the Harvard Business Review in 2002 entitled “Inside Microsoft: Balancing Discipline and Creativity.” In 2004 he authored a book published by Random House titled The Fiefdom Syndrome; The Turf Battles that Undermine Careers and Companies – and How to Overcome Them. His second book was published in 2007 by McGraw Hill titled: Seduced by Success; How the Best Companies Survive the 9 Traps of Winning. In 2011 his third book was published by John Wiley & Sons titled What’s Holding You Back? Ten Bold Steps that Define Gutsy Leaders.

Herbold also has extensive experience as a corporate board member, having served on the boards of directors of Agilent Technologies, Neptune Orient Shipping Lines, Weyerhaeuser and several others over the past 20 years. In recent years, he has regularly appeared on numerous business news TV outlets, such as CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox Business.

He has endowed two chairs at Case Western Reserve University: the Robert J. Herbold Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Case School of Engineering and the Robert J. Herbold Professor of Transformational Teaching in the Case School of Engineering. He has also endowed the Robert J. Herbold Professor of Strategy at the University of Washington and funded the Herbold Computational Biology Program at the Hutchison Cancer Research Center.

Herbold has a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from the University of Cincinnati and both a master’s degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in computer science from Case Western Reserve University. He has received honorary doctorate degrees from the Case Western Reserve University, the University of Cincinnati and the Thunderbird School of Global Management.