Peer Forum Veteran Mike Richardson Joins REF San Diego Team

REF San Diego is excited to announce that Mike Richardson is joining the REF San Diego (formerly Renaissance Executive Forums) team as a Partner and Forum Leader. Mike is a veteran of the executive peer group industry having led 4 peer forums of CEOs, Executives, and CFOs for 15 years, spoken to over 400 peer forums around the world, and trained and mentored other peer forum leaders and speakers.

Mike joins the team at an exciting time for REF San Diego, which has evolved into a vibrant and growing membership community of peer forums with a difference. An integral part of a growing community in Southern California, across the USA, and globally in 20 countries, REF celebrates 30 years in 2024 and provides a unique ecosystem of Leaders Powered by Collective Intelligence as its mission.

Mike joins REF San Diego partners Mark Neilson, Susan Kuruvilla, Brad Lee, and retiring partner emeritus Jim Tenuto. Mark Neilson said, “We are so fortunate to add Mike’s passion, experience, and drive to our team, which Susan and I experienced first-hand when we were in one of his CEO peer forums for more than a decade. We have great respect for ALL peer executive organizations and for those CEOs and executives who join any of them AND are also not bashful in our vision of emerging as the premier peer forum community in San Diego. We are confident that Mike’s energy, skills, and advocacy will help make that a reality for the benefit of all of our existing members and our future members”.

In addition, Mike has already been part of the REF Global team for over a year helping their expansion across the USA and globally. With Mike’s help, REF just opened peer forums in Miami, London UK and soon to be in Northern Europe in addition to its growing membership base in Spain.

Mike said, “Staying future-proofed with the agility required is only getting exponentially more challenging at an accelerating speed. That has been my passion for thought-leadership and practice-leadership since going independent 20 years ago and in my 20-year corporate career before that as a CEO of high-technology aerospace hardware and software companies. I went looking for who is on the leading edge of what’s next with peer forum experiences fueling collective intelligence and agility. I found REF. I am delighted to be here in service of our members and their employees, their futures, and their families.”