Kevin Reid
Board Member
Kevin is a technology entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience creating software enabled solutions that deliver efficiency, enable innovation and drive superior financial results for enterprises worldwide. He is currently a founding partner of the Blue Lagoon Companies, where he incubates, advises and invests in progressive technology companies that are disrupting and redefining their industries. Kevin’s own prior innovations have driven several successful venture capital exits, including two “unicorns”, startups that reach a $1 billion valuation.
In 2009, Kevin co-founded Virtustream, an enterprise-class cloud company, and served as CEO and CTO until the company’s sale to EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) in 2015 for $1.2 billion. At Virtustream, Kevin invented and led the implementation of the MicroVM, a common currency for expressing, provisioning and optimizing shared infrastructure resources on which he obtained 5 US patents. He also drove a collaboration with Intel Corporation to create the industry’s first trusted cloud platform with encryption down to the silicon layer. The result, the xStream® cloud platform, was recognized by industry analysts as the most secure cloud computing platform for enterprise customers and delivered first-mover advantage for SAP customers seeking public cloud economics with the security and performance of a private cloud.
Kevin continued with Virtustream after the acquisition by EMC as the company’s President and CTO. He continued in this role through the $60+ billion acquisition of EMC by Dell Technologies in 2016 and was appointed to the Dell Technologies Global Strategy Leadership Council and the Dell Technologies CTO Council. He retired from the company in 2018 and, today, Virtustream continues to operate as one of the seven ingredient brands of Dell Technologies.
In 2008, Kevin co-founded Greensmith Energy Management Systems, a US-based leader in intelligent energy storage technology and solutions, where he served as Chairman of the Board from inception through its acquisition in 2017 by Wärtsilä Corporation (OMX: WRT1V) for $170 million. Kevin led the creation of the company’s industry leading energy management software system, GEMS, pioneering central control capabilities of distributed energy storage appliances. The GEMS platform enables customers to remotely manage individual systems or entire fleets of devices, identifying and diagnosing equipment issues in real time to extend system lifetime while optimizing return on investment. GEMS enabled devices use predictive algorithms that consider the supply of energy, utility pricing, and projected demand. This innovative approach, underpinned by several US Patents with Kevin as inventor, revolutionized the power distribution network and deferred billions in spend to upgrade physical power line infrastructure. By 2016, the company had deployed more megawatts of energy storage than any other company in the United States with over one-third of all energy storage capacity installed in the country running on the GEMS platform.
Prior to Greensmith, Kevin was co-founder and CTO of Adjoined, a US based management consulting, technology and outsourcing firm targeting the Global 2000 market, where he was responsible for sales and delivery of the firm’s technology services. For Adjoined, Kevin developed the concept of Accelerators, a repeatable, software-enabled approach to reduce the man hours required to deliver solutions. This key contribution to sales velocity and gross margin expansion helped to drive a premium multiple in its $200+ million acquisition by Kanbay (NASDQ: KBAY) in 2006. Kevin continued with Kanbay through the acquisition and transition and had global responsibility for the Business Intelligence, Business Applications and Technology practices. In 2007, Capgemini SE (CAP: EN Paris) acquired Kanbay for $1.2 billion. Kevin continued as North American leader for Enterprise Architecture and Business Intelligence and was appointed to Capgemini’s Global CTO council.
Prior to Adjoined, Kevin was the CIO for Florida Crystals Corporation (FCC), a privately held company recognized as one of the largest sweetener companies in the world, reporting directly to the CEO and responsible for technology applications across the Agricultural, Consumer Products and Refinery Divisions. The innovative solutions he delivered during his tenure still remain as the backbone of the company’s operations, including SAP and AGNET, an in-house developed application used to manage farming operations. Before being promoted to CIO, Kevin was the Director of Operations responsible for building and operating food packaging plants, including the distribution of products to customers via rail and truck. Prior to that, he was with Anderson Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
Kevin has been recognized consistently for his accomplishments including recently being named one of Black Enterprises’ 2018 most powerful African American executives in corporate America and was the joint recipient of Intel Capital’s Entrepreneur/Exit of the Year award with co-founder Rodney Rogers in 2015. He also been invited to speak and present at events hosted by industry leaders such as Goldman Sachs, Dell EMC, VMware, SAP and Red Herring.
Aside from his professional work, Kevin is also an active philanthropist. He founded The Blue Lagoon Foundation, a organization driven to continuously raise awareness and passively source funds for philanthropic programs including an initiative to help children in his native Jamaica further their educations and build brighter futures.
Kevin graduated with an MBA from the University of Miami and holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Florida International University.