Robert Stone​

Robert D. Stone is an executive leadership, innovation, revenue, and business-development coach whose career has taken him from military cockpits and intelligence work to technology ventures, government service, corporate boardrooms, and the coaching of senior executives. A former Marine Corps captain and A-6E Intruder aviator, Stone later became a technology entrepreneur, inventor, executive, and adviser to leaders in business and government. He was part of the executive team that led the turnaround and sale of Wavecom Technologies to Hawaiian Telcom, and served as head of business development for North America at Rhythms NetConnections, which went public at a 1999 market valuation exceeding $3 billion, and at Terabeam, which raised approximately $576 million. He also served in advisory and leadership roles involving Google, Bosch, the Pentagon, and the United States Space Force, where his work included helping establish its early data strategy, and holds three U.S. patents in medical device design. In 2020, Crunchbase ranked him among the top three business influencers in Orange County, California.

Today, through The Bob Stone Agency, Stone coaches founders, chief executives, senior leaders, and leadership teams facing consequential decisions, organizational change, revenue challenges, and technological disruption. Bob serves as chair of several company boards; he spent five years as a Vistage Chair earlier in his career. His approach combines disciplined decision-making, human judgment, innovation, and practical accountability.

Stone is the author of books exploring leadership, judgment, memory, family, courage, and the human consequences of difficult decisions. Following his Alzheimer's diagnosis, he began writing openly about the experience not as an ending, but as another leadership challenge requiring truth, preparation, dignity, and love. He lives in Palm Desert, California, with his wife, internationally collected artist Kristen Olson Stone.