Elaine C. Rideout

Elaine C. Rideout, Ph.D. is founder and CEO of WISER Systems, Inc. Dr. Rideout is a career entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience conceiving innovative ideas and moving them from abstraction to execution. She has founded and supported dozens of startups, raising more than $100 million to capitalize her business and nonprofit ventures, and employing skills that range from startup planning to product sales to executive management. A former economist, she served as founding executive of the Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees and the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. She holds an MPP from University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy and a Ph.D. in Psychology-Entrepreneurship from NC State University, where she is a Kauffman Fellow, a Kauffman Emerging Scholar, and an Adjunct Professor. She has authored 3 books, over 20 journal articles, and a comparable number of technical reports and white papers on topics in technology, entrepreneurship and university innovation.