Longtime Dallas resident Rick Jackson is an alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin where he earned a BBA in finance. During college, he served as the president of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity and volunteered as a member of the Texas Cowboys Honorary Service Organization. After earning his BBA, Rick Jackson began his career as director of sales at EDS in Plano, Texas. In this position, which he held until 1995, he led a team that achieved $280 million in long-term consulting contract services. He went on to act as director of global EXEN sales at Westcott Communications in Dallas where he successfully launched the first executive education network in partnership with the nation’s leading educational institutions.

Mr. Jackson then became vice president of sales and marketing at Digital Knowledge Assets in Chicago before returning to Dallas to serve as senior director of Broadcast.com. He guided the firm through its IPO and sale to Yahoo for $5.6 billion. Next, as vice president of sales at Ignite Technologies, he commercialized a file-transfer system for businesses.

In 2005, Mr. Jackson moved to global segment leader at McAfee and built the SMB division into a key driver of the firm’s $7.6 billion acquisition by Intel. He went on to executive positions at Cinsay and the Zix Corporation before founding Rocket Roar LLC in 2014. In this, his current position, Rick Jackson helps high-tech companies bring new products to market.