With 40+ years of experience as a technology executive, general manager, president / business owner, and engineer, Chris Kohler has a proven strategic and visionary track record of creating and leading highly effective organizations for Fortune 500 companies as an effective means to accelerate business objectives.
Experienced in all functional areas of an organization with a focus on product development, operations, and internationally-sourced manufacturing, he helps companies to:
- Offer products and/or services worldwide
- Find new business opportunities
- Develop new, high-quality products and services
- Deliver strong revenues and profits
- Position start-up and/or existing businesses for sustainable global growth
As an expert in international outsourced ODM/JDM/OEM/CM business approaches and operational best practices that significantly reduce product/service costs and operating expenses, while increasing quality, production, and overall market share, Chris works with high tech, consumer electronic, wireless, networking, telecommunication, computing, and IoT companies.
In his distinguished career, Chris served as:
Vice President Engineering for CommScope Home Networks Segment where he was a member of the Executive Leadership Team and directly responsible for leading a world-wide R&D organization that consisted of 1000+ telecom engineers at 16 internal design centers and 10 Joint-Design-Manufacturing (JDM) centers. During his tenor, Chris achieved 30% OPEX reduction by utilizing his extensive experience in operational R&D efficiencies. He also served as a technical expert for private equity/IPO/M&A due diligence initiatives.
General Manager and Vice President Engineering for ARRIS Retail Division, where he drove annual revenues of $100M and was directly responsible for growing the SURFboard cable modem brand in retail to be #1 most recognizable in North America. He also led the Telco Broadband CPE R&D organization, an expert technical witness for FBI in USA vs Ryan Harris (aka DerEngel cable modem hacker) and an industry representative at FCC hearings for measuring broadband speeds.
Senior Director Engineering for Google, Motorola, and General Instrument where he was responsible for numerous R&D functions such as systems, hardware, software, QA, and program management in the development of broadband (cable, fiber, DSL) and video (cable, satellite) CPE products.
President and co-owner of Zero Silence Networks, LLC where he organically created an ISP that specialized in internet video-monitoring systems for various SMB markets.
Chris holds M.S.E.E and B.S.E.E. degrees from San Diego State University and Cable Executive Management certification from Harvard Business School. He was selected into Eta Kappa Nu Electrical Engineering Honor Society for academic excellence.