An accomplished marketing professional who resides in Naples, FL, George S. Richards began his career while studying economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. It was there that George S. Richards founded Educational Services Company as a means of financing his education, but the company soon after expanded to include a group of four tutors serving clients in Philadelphia and New Jersey. Upon completing his degree, he earned an MBA from Wharton, as one of very few participants in the school’s extremely selective and extraordinarily limited sub-matriculate program.

In 1987, George S. Richards was hired as an engagement manager with McKinsey & Company in New York City. Three years later, he joined Sears, Roebuck as a manager of business development, spending three years with the company and developing a successful turnaround strategy to reverse a decade-long trend of annual losses totaling more than $100 million. He also administered a $300 million advertising and promotional budget. Mr. Richards was later re-hired by McKinsey as a senior engagement manager and later worked briefly as vice president of marketing and business development with Montgomery Ward Direct, L.P., where he grew sales by $100 million in one year.

Since 1995, the Naples, FL resident has worked in a variety of executive capacities with Sempris, LLC. He helped the company overcome consistent annual losses upon being named president in 1999 and returned it to operating profitability by the first quarter of 2002 before its successful Chapter 11 restructuring filing. Under Mr. Richards' leadership, the company emerged from its restructuring as an innovator in the design and implementation of fee-based membership and consumer-loyalty programs.