During his primary school years, Richard Munro grew up on a farm with his parents and sister in a tiny rural town southeast of Christchurch, New Zealand. His mother was a homemaker and his father worked in several occupa- tions including as a tailor, dry cleaner, and farm manager prior to buying the farm, on which he raised milking cows and pigs. Richard’s father was an independent, self-reliant, can-do individual whose influence was instrumental in Richard’s future professional career. His parents instilled in him a sense of making do with the resources available and making the best of any situation. No matter how difficult, intimidating, or insurmountable the circumstances might first appear, nothing was impossible in the Munro household if approached with common sense and the knowledge that hard work might be required to overcome the challenge.
From an early age, Richard always respected a good sense of humor and an inquisitive curious mind. These traits were important factors in his later career success. He liked taking clocks apart to see how they operated, and he tried to put them back together albeit not always successfully much to his parents’ dismay.
He always wanted to know how things worked and why they worked, so that he could make them work better. His sense of humor began with Richard mimicking local farmer behaviors, and later developed into a very typical English style self-deprecating and sarcastic humor. In school, he was inquisitive and asked a lot of questions to sate his curiosity.
His father had a variety of trade jobs and Richard learned a lot from him. Including being able to turn his hand to building, repairing, and fixing things around the house. Richard learned how to do carpentry and woodworking and when he got married, he made most of their first furniture, which is still standing today. His traits of self-reliance, sense of humor, and being curious and inquisitive, have served him well in often tense and time- sensitive leadership, restructuring, and court fiduciary appointments during his international professional career.
After high school, Richard attended the University of Canterbury where he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in accounting and management information systems. He was curious about computer programming in Fortran and the emerging world of IT and desktop computing. He also took several law classes as part of his degree including a class on US antitrust law learning the Sherman Act and the Robinson Patman Act—which would serve him well when he emigrated to the United States in 2002.
While at University, he met his wife and life-partner, Andrée (now married 41 years). After graduation, Richard married and moved to Wellington where he worked for the New Zealand government. This afforded him the time to study and qualify as a Chartered Accountant (CA), the equivalent of an American CPA. Immediately upon becoming a CA, he left his government job and grew his career as controller with Jantzen, then as CFO at Nabisco, and then as CFO at Fujifilm.
Joining Fujifilm was pivotal in his expanding career. At Fujifilm he had a great mentor by the name of David Wright, who helped develop Richard’s business and financial acumen and who had Fujifilm pay for Richard to complete an MBA program. Not long after he graduated with his MBA, David created the opportunity for Richard to become CEO of the NZ Fujifilm Group. In this role, Richard interacted with other business leaders in many countries around the Pacific Rim, and in the UK.
Richard later left the corporate world and started his own consulting business solving problems in distressed businesses and receiving workout referrals from major banks. Richard truly enjoyed solving business problems and restructuring operations to generate cash. Moving into consulting also enabled him to develop the necessary life skills to immigrate and survive in the US.
Richard and his wife won the US Green Card Lottery, so his family left for the US in April 2002 on immigrant visas, not knowing one single person, and just six months after 9/11. Since that time, Richard has been fortunate to build an incredible network of corporate directors, leaders and professionals, served as a public company CEO, served on public, private equity, private, not for profit, and multinational subsidiary boards. After immigrating, Richard also entered the world of receivership, fiduciary, and bankruptcy appointments.
His knowledge, business leadership, restructuring experience, and personality are a natural fit to being a receiver, provisional director and restructuring advisor. Richard successfully networked and promoted his experience and skills effectively in his new home country, thereby building a name for himself and his business.
To this day, Richard loves the creativity and flexibility afforded receivers in the court of equity. Richard excels at corporate receiverships, complex business disputes, and other business-related fiduciary appointments and engagements. He is known for his creativity, his sensible no- nonsense approach to situations at hand, and for being cost- effective and efficient.
Richard is never one to be idle. He is also the President & CEO of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Pacific Southwest Chapter, providing around 40 corporate director education programs to approximately 2,000 corporate directors annually. Many may not be aware, but in addition to being a receiver and fiduciary, Richard has been producing corporate director education programs for nearly 15 years, which is a whole different professional universe than his restructuring, insolvency and fiduciary practice.
His wife Andrée and their two daughters Diana and Sacha keep him grounded and appreciating family life together, despite the daily stresses that his cases can generate. Diana and Sacha have pursued successful careers in medicine and risk management, respectively, with major organizations. Andrée, is a keen gardener and apart from keeping the family together, also looks after children for professional parents during the day and after school. She finds it extremely rewarding, and it’s fun for Richard and Andrée to watch these young children grow into adults and go on to college.
On his desk is one of the best gifts he’s ever received. It’s an ornament that says, “Of all the names I’ve been called I like Dad the best”, and that about sums it up for Richard. His family is the key to his hard work and diligence in all that he does. His friends can attest to the fact that Richard’s proudest achievements, despite his long professional resume, is his family.