Frederick (Rick) Funston
Chief Executive Officer
Rick has over fifty years of experience in both not-for-profit and for-profit sectors. His career began in crisis intervention within the public sector. He later trained hostage negotiators, medical personnel, and public service workers in de-escalation techniques. He acted as a negotiator and facilitator in numerous stakeholder engagements, including working with the Canadian brewing industry during the NAFTA negotiations.
This evolved into consulting roles focused on strategy and operations, organizational leadership development, performance management, program evaluation, and survey research.
Between 1998-2010, he was the National Practice leader for Deloitte’s Governance and Risk Oversight Services. In that capacity, he served many of Deloitte’s largest domestic and global clients. In 2001, Rick created the concept of risk intelligence for value creation and protection.
He is a frequent public speaker and is the principal author of Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty: Creating the Risk Intelligent Enterprise®, published by John Wiley & Sons in April 2010. This book specifically targeted the governance and risk oversight needs of boards and executives in both public and private sectors.
He served on the Board of Visitors for the Oakland University School of Business Administration from 2009-2011 and was an Adjunct Professor for the executive MBA program. Rick left Deloitte & Touche LLP in May 2010 and formed Funston Advisory Services LLC. Between 2011-2012, he served as special advisor to the Risk Institute of the Max Fisher School of Business at The Ohio State University.
Rick was the editor and a primary contributor to One of a Kind! A Practical Guide for 21st Century Public Pension Trustees published in 2017. Most recently, Rick is the principal author of a forthcoming book with Jon Lukomnik Adapt or Fail! A 5x5 Governance Framework for Board of Directors to be published by De Gruyter in March 2025.
He was awarded a B.A. from York University in Ontario and an M.S.W. from Tulane University.
Rick is based in Naples, Florida.