Rick is the Chief Executive Officer of Funston Advisory Services LLC (FAS). Since 2010, Funston Advisory Services has performed numerous reviews of public retirement systems’ governance, strategy, risk, operations, compliance and control. FAS also provides related fiduciary consulting services and board and executive education. Since founding Funston Advisory Services in 2010, Rick has led a series of assignments with major public retirement systems, including the New York City Bureau of Asset Management (BAM), the South Carolina Public Employee Benefit Authority (PEBA), the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission (RSIC), the School Employees Retirement System (SERS) of Ohio, the New York State Common Retirement Fund (NYS CRF), the Oregon Investment Council, and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).

In 2001, he created the concept of risk intelligence and he is the principal author of Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty: Creating The Risk Intelligent Enterprise™ published by John Wiley & Sons in April, 2010. In 2017, Rick was the principal author and editor of One of a Kind! A Practical Guide for 21st Century Public Pension Trustees. He is a frequent public speaker and has published numerous articles on the topics of fiduciary duty, governance and risk intelligence. Rick has over forty years’ experience in both not-for-profit and for-profit sectors. Prior to forming FAS, Rick was the National Practice leader for Deloitte’s Governance and Risk Oversight Services. In that capacity, he served many of Deloitte’s largest domestic and global clients and was responsible for the thought leadership that currently underpins Deloitte’s global pre-eminent position in risk intelligence.

In the private sector, he has worked with small, mid and large cap companies across a broad range of industries including aerospace and defense, automotive, health, financial services, energy and utilities, consumer business, telecommunications and technology. In both public and private sectors, he consults with boards of directors and senior executives on strategy and means to improve decision-making for sustainable stakeholder value and competitive advantage through better risk intelligence, oversight and governance. Before joining Deloitte, Rick was the CEO of Continuous Improvement Services Inc. He began his career in the public-sector consulting on strategy and operations, organization and leadership development, performance management, program evaluation and survey research.

Rick has been a guest lecturer at the Yale School of Business and Princeton University. From 2009-2011 he served on the Board of Visitors for the Oakland University School of Business Administration and was an Adjunct Professor for the executive MBA program. He was also the interim Director of the Risk Institute of the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University. He has a Bachelor of Arts from York University in Toronto, Canada and an M.S.W. from Tulane University in New Orleans.