George Conrades is the former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Akamai Technologies. Prior to Akamai, Conrades served as CEO of BBN Technologies. Before joining BBN he spent 31 years at IBM, running its U.S. and Asia-Pacific businesses and heading two manufacturing and development groups. Mr. Conrades currently serves as an Executive Advisor to Akamai Technologies and on the Board of Directors of

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. He has also served on the Boards of

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and Harley-Davidson. Conrades was also an executive producer of the 2013 documentary film

20 Feet from Stardom ''20 Feet from Stardom'' is a 2013 American documentary film directed by documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville and produced by Gil Friesen, a music industry executive whose curiosity to know more about the lives of background singers inspired the ...

, which won the 2014 Academy award for Best Documentary. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is married to Patricia “Patsy” Belt Conrades.

Career

Conrades spent his childhood in Youngstown, Ohio, during the 1950s. In 1961, he received his B.S. degree in Physics and Mathematics from

Ohio Wesleyan University Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) is a private liberal arts college in Delaware, Ohio. It was founded in 1842 by methodist leaders and Central Ohio residents as a nonsectarian institution, and is a member of the Ohio Five – a consortium ...

, and received the M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1971. He was going to join a rock band after his graduation, but took the position of a sales representative in Big Blue,

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

. After 10 years at IBM, Conrades got a sales management position in Chicago and inherited the company's fifth largest account, Sears, Roebuck & Co. In 1971, he entered for the Executive MBA Program North America at Booth. The program provided broad perspectives of business. The MBA helped Conrades to make a good career at IBM. He took top management positions at IBM for more than two decades. Conrades advanced to the rank of senor vice president and member of the Corporate Management Board. But by late 1980s, IBM faced contest in technological businesses. In 1992, Conrades left his top management position. Conrades formed a technology consulting firm in the advanced R&D company Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN). The company was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. BBN became an early internet service provider.

References

American computer businesspeople American technology chief executives Ohio Wesleyan University alumni University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumni American chief operating officers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Akamai Technologies people {{US-CEO-stub