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Named a “Growth Guru” by Inc. Magazine and a Silicon Valley Serial CEO, Dean DeBiase has served in chief executive and chairman roles of more than a dozen emerging growth companies, accelerating them through market-making hyper-growth phases including global expansion, digital disruption, scaleup, turnaround, roll-up, spin-out, divestiture, acquisition and IPO—with dozens of successful exits. He has also been the CEO of Fortune 500 subsidiaries, and a director on public, private, family-enterprise, CVC, PE and VC boards.

A popular keynote speaker, podcaster and author, Dean is Chairman of Reboot Partners, where he and his team focus on scaling emerging growth companies, and helping startups and Fortune 1000’s to drive global growth together. He is also a leading advisor on how organizations can tackle their most challenging issues, business/digital transformation and marketing, build global business development initiatives, seize emerging market opportunities, develop new channels and business models—and tap into entrepreneurial and DEI ecosystems to co-create new growth initiatives, partnerships, M&A and ESG opportunities.

Dean is the Executive Producer, Creator, and Host of a variety of programs and media programming including The Reboot Chronicles Podcast and The Reboot Institute’s Executive Education Programs, including the Reboot Fellows, Dancing with Startups, and Boardroom Innovation.

Dean is a Faculty Member at Kellogg School of Management, a Technology Fellow at Northwestern University, a Board Leadership Fellow at The National Association of Corporate Directors, and an Advisor to the NSF – National Science Foundation.

He is a frequent media guest , commentator and guest host on TV programs, including CNBC, CNN, Fox and NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice. A Forbes Contributor and co-author of the best-selling book The Big Moo, Dean, is working on his next book, Dancing with Startups.

Connect with Dean here: www.linkedin.com/in/FollowDean

“I recruited Dean to the be the chief executive of TNS Media, at a critical time when we needed a growth oriented CEO, who could orchestrate acquisitions and roll-ups, while strategically turning around and repositioning our core businesses. We conducted a global search for a leader who could take us to the next level and transform our organization, culture, business models, partnerships, acquisitions and growth…and bring an entrepreneurial management style into our company. Dean was uniquely qualified to do this, and more, as he transformed the company into a digital media powerhouse that quickly became highly valuable, and an extremely attractive asset to our future acquirer, WPP.

Dean is an inspirational, hands-on, results oriented operator that did a great job upgrading our talent, rolling up multiple business units, and partnering, acquiring and integrating new digital companies…all while reducing costs. He introduced a new combined company, and brands, in a thoughtful and impactful way which improved our competitive position and elevated our thought leadership platforms across our target markets. In a difficult global economy, Dean over-delivered for TNS Media and WPP, and I hope to be able to recruit him again in the future.”

Peter Movesian

WPP

“I have worked with Dean DeBiase, and have been part of his senior leadership teams, when he was Chairman or CEO of various companies we were transforming through expansion, M&A, and IPO growth stages. He hired me early in my career, and I was fortunate to be mentored by him during my sales and customer service management ascension at FedEx. Dean is the type of leader that helps to create new leaders, which is why I continued to work with him and was consistently one of his top performing officers at Autoweb (which we grew tenfold and took public), TNS Media (a rollup we orchestrated of seven media companies like Compete.com which was acquired by WPP), Entertainment.com (which we restructured and sold to a founder group), Zenith/LG (which we turned around, while inventing cable modems and creating the broadband services industry),The Imagination Network (which we divested from AT&T, sold to AOL, and then launched WorldPlay Entertainment)…and Fathom Online (which we expanded into a search market leader and sold to Geary Interactive).

Dean is a visionary leader, who also has a unique ability to consistently inspire the troops to drive the business forward, while “keeping his cool” when things were challenging for us and we needed more of his support. Dean makes it a top priority to keep employees informed on key issues, engaged around the strategy and executing on the detail—while effectively communicating the more remedial steps and focus needed to reboot the company. He’s one of the few leaders who obtains facts from all areas/levels of the company and the market, in order to “get it right” and more effectively collaborate with employees, partners, supplies and board members to not just take the company to the next level, but increase shareowner value to boot.”

Garrett Mullins

Entertainment Promotions

“I recruited Dean to be the Chief Executive of ImagiNation Network (INN), the largest online games company and social networking pioneer. We had a positive experience with him previously at ANTEC, where he partnered with AT&T to invent fiber optic Cable TV systems and bring us into that market, and his team had just invented cable modems at LG/Zenith, creating the broadband services industry. INN was his first of many Silicon Valley tours of duty, driving early stage companies into market leaders, like he did next with Autoweb.

I’m not sure he knew it then, but INN is where he perfected his practice of “Rebooting” key parts of the business…he focuses on the people, platform and passion. He put in place a visionary strategy, shifting it from a low margin vertically integrated online service, into a high margin horizontal content studio model, in partnership with leading brands. This industry partnering approach was called radically disruptive, but in a classic “skate to where the puck is going” move, he repositioned the brand and saved the company. During this transformation, he upgraded people and a passion for growth, rebuilt technology platforms (gaining unappalled support from the heads of Microsoft and Sun/Oracle), and created a new industry ecosystem by orchestrating favorable deals with Hollywood and game studios on the content side and Internet service/search providers on the channel distribution side.

When there were bumps along the way, in terms of AT&T’s commitment to the sector and massive competitive threats, Dean was masterful in nurturing his teams through periods of doubt, protecting them from the mother-ship, keeping the revenue growing…and closing profitable deals through his new “arms-dealer” business model. As the turned-around company began to gain share and clout in the market, it became more attractive and valuable, and Dean orchestrated the successful sale of INN to AOL, which was very attractive exit for AT&T.”

Gordon Bridge

AT&T

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