About Highland Ross’ Principal, Bob Ross
Bob has benefited from unique business experiences and wonderful mentors over the years and wants to pour all those learnings and ventures out to his clients and community in the form of teaching, coaching, and facilitating. He has a passion for helping organizations ensure they align their high-level vision and mission, value propositions, and the people and processes where the work actually gets done.
Bob received his formal education from Auburn University (’89) and Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management (’93). He has received his real education outside academia across a literal span of types of business organizations:
- a Fortune 50 company (Dell Computer Corporation, now just Dell, Inc.)
- a Fortune 500 company (Acuity Brands, Inc., parent company of Lithonia Lighting)
- a mom-n-pop defense contractor with about 30 employees (Salem Technologies)
- owned a print shop with seven employees (International Minute Press)
- a major non-profit (YMCA of Northwest North Carolina)
- board positions on several local youth sports organizations (president of Greater Forsyth Swim League and treasurer of Winston-Salem Lacrosse) as well as coaching sports teams
- even a family-owned candy factory
In addition to the varied relative sizes of companies, Bob has vast experience across the traditional functional disciplines such as finance, marketing, and sales, human resources, and operations. Bob has married his MBA training in advanced statistics and operations management with Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing applications. In each of these roles, Bob had mentors coach him in communication, problem-solving, and business case development. Two of his mentors came from prestigious strategy consulting firms, so Bob gained the benefit of their training.
Bob considers himself a student of the teachings of such notable leadership experts like Napoleon Hill, Jim Rohn, Steven Covey, Patrick Lencioni, and John Wooden and has consistently sought to apply their teachings in all of his roles.
Bob thrives on helping people in individual, and small group settings think through their organizational and operational challenges. His training allows him to shift gears smoothly between high-level strategy and on-the-ground process. He loves white-boarding problems and helping people develop frameworks, action steps, and timelines. Bob’s ideal brainstorming environment is a room of whiteboards, piles of sticky notes, and dry erase markers.
Bob is married to Dixie, Assistant Dean of Finance and Administration at Wake Forest University. Together, they have three spirited, active adult kids. All have been active in the community, the church, and sports.
