Richard "Rick" Gruenhagen is the Founder and CEO of Bluumly, an AI-powered digital marketing platform revolutionizing how small businesses compete in the digital landscape. A seasoned technology executive with over 25 years of experience, Rick has a proven track record of leading innovation, scaling technology companies, and driving successful exits totaling over $2.2 billion.
Prior to founding Bluumly, Rick served as Chief Technology Officer at Innovyze, where he led the technology organization through a $1 billion acquisition by Autodesk. He previously held the CTO position at Spireon, scaling their connected vehicle IoT platform to 4 million vehicles and driving a $530 million acquisition by Greenbriar Equity Group.
Rick's extensive technology leadership experience includes executive roles at Impinj (contributing to their successful IPO), Microsoft (leading global teams across Azure SQL DB, O365 BI tools, and Bing cloud infrastructure), Amazon (Global Payment Systems), PayPal (Web Services engineering), and AOL.
Rick served as an Assistant Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he developed academic curriculum in leadership and management that contributed to a new undergraduate leadership minor. He holds a Master of Science in Computer Systems Engineering from Boston University and a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics from the University of Minnesota.
Before his technology career, Rick served as a Lieutenant Commander and Naval Flight Officer in the U.S. Navy, flying the F-14 Tomcat as a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO).
Rick combines his technical expertise, business acumen, and leadership experience to empower small businesses with enterprise-grade AI marketing capabilities previously available only to large corporations.