Friday, October 10, 2008

The Mover

Richstone leaves retirement for Luminus’ CFO seat

By Jay Rizoli, Special to Mass High Tech

As a student, Ellen Richstone was hard at work preparing to take on the world. And after studying political science, international affairs, diplomacy and finance, that’s just what she did.

“I always envisioned myself working in an international environment with international law,” said Richstone, the new executive vice president and chief financial officer at Luminus Devices Inc. in Billerica. “If you’d asked me as an undergrad I’d have probably said I’d end up working at the U.N.”

She didn’t, but she has worked on both coasts, lived in France three times and worked on corporate expansion in Europe and across Asia. “Everything I’ve done has been international,” she said. “I just find the complexities and requirements for doing business in the international environment very invigorating and very fascinating.”

Richstone worked early in her career at Chemical Bank in its international division at a time when it was expanding globally, and she later worked on the consulting side, helping Chemical customer companies understand the requirements for international expansion. Later, at Polaroid Corp., she so impressed one executive that he declared she would ultimately become a CFO and worked with her to make it happen.

And it did — Richstone eventually served as CFO at five different companies, but first came an eight-year stint at Data General Corp. — “one of the truly great Massachusetts companies” — where she was vice president and corporate treasurer. There, she expanded on her Polaroid experience working in Japan, handling financing chores in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Phillippines.

In 2002 she began her only stint as a chief executive, as president and CEO at Entrepreneurial Resources Group, a Boston provider of operational and financial software. Of her departure from the CFO role, she says, “My motivation is ‘How do I add value in a great environment with great people?’ The title doesn’t really matter.”

Before arriving at Luminus, a developer of high-performance solid-state lighting products that use both LED and laser technology, Richstone was CFO at Sonus Networks Inc. in Westford until her retirement earlier this year. But that retirement didn’t last.

“I left Sonus and I retired, thinking I would spend most of my time on boards,” said Richstone, who serves on the board of Blue Shift Technologies in Andover and is the non-executive chairman of Entrepreneurial Services Group and says boards are a big part of her life. “I just got to the point in the last six months where I thought if I found the right company, with a strong technology, potential for growth, great people, and I could see it becoming the next great Massachusetts company. So I feel lucky to be with this one.”

 

Jay Rizoli is a freelance writer in Franklin.