Ron Dembo

Ron Dembo in 2006

Ron S. Dembo is one of the world's leading authorities in risk management, both as an academic and in business, having founded Algorithmics Inc. He is also the Founder and CEO of Zerofootprint, a cleantech software and services company. He is the author of three books and numerous technical papers.

The Zerofootprint Foundation was founded in 2005 to engage communities everywhere in the battle against climate change. Its mission is to apply technology, design and risk management to the massive reduction of our environmental footprint.^[1] It pursues causes that uphold values of sustainable development, risk management, research, and advocacy. The Foundation initiatives involve government (Federal, Provincial and Municipal), educators (universities, elementary and middle schools) and other not-for-profit organizations. Geographical and societal barriers do not limit its vision. Zerofootprint came in first place and won Gold in the Climate Change category at the Canadian Environment Awards in 2008.^[2] Zerofootprint operates both in the for-profit and charitable domains through two entities, Zerofootprint Software and the Zerofootprint Foundation using shared technology. In 2009, Dembo also established the ZEROprize, a one million dollar prize for a design to retrofit a concrete building built between 1945 and 1990.^[3]

Prior to founding Zerofootprint, Dembo was the Founder, CEO, and President of Algorithmics Incorporated, growing it from a start-up to the largest enterprise risk management software company in the world, with offices in fifteen countries and over 70% of the world’s top 100 banks as clients. Algorithmics was consistently voted as one of the top 50 best-managed companies in Canada.

Dembo had a ten-year academic career at Yale University, where he was cross-appointed between the Department of Computer Science and the School of Management. He has published over sixty technical papers on finance and mathematical optimization, and holds a number of patents in computational finance.

In May 2007, Dembo was made a lifetime Fields Institute Fellow. This fellowship is awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the Fields Institute, its programs, and to the Canadian mathematical community. In July 2007, Dembo was inducted as a charter member of the Risk Who’s Who. Dembo’s alma mater, the University of Waterloo, honoured Dembo with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. He is also a member of the University of Waterloo's Deans Advisory Council in the Faculty of Environment, and a member of the Board of Advisors to the President at the Ontario College of Art and Design University.

Dr. Dembo is also an advisor to the Board at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, and is a member of the Board of Governors of University of Toronto’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council program. In 2009, Dr. Dembo was appointed to the Steering Committee of the World Urban Campaign, coordinated by UN-Habitat. He also recently received a Green Toronto Award from the City of Toronto for his work with Zerofootprint,^[4] as well as receiving a Certificate of Recognition, Champion of Green from the Government of Ontario.^[5]

Dembo is the author of three books: Seeing Tomorrow: Rewriting the Rules of Risk, co-authored with Andrew Freeman, published in April 1998; Upside Downside: Simple Rules of Risk Management for the Smart Investor, co-authored with Daniel Stoffman, published in March 2006; and Everything You Wanted to Know About Offsetting But Were Afraid to Ask, co-authored with Clive Davidson and released in May 2007.

He holds a PhD Operations Research, University of Waterloo (1975); an MSc Chemical Engineering, Technion (1972); and a BSc Chemical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand (1969).

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