User:Rlehan

Richard J. Lehan II (born July 22, 1967) is an American businessman and entrepreneur. He founded Lehan & Co. LLC. in 2012 following the sale of Kozy Shack Enterprises, Inc., where he served for over 13 years as Senior Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer. At Kozy Shack, Lehan helped build the company from a regional refrigerated dessert company to a highly successful natural food brand with distribution throughout North America and manufacturing facilities in the US and Ireland. Before Kozy Shack, Lehan held senior information technology management positions at Cablevision Systems Corporation, Tellabs Systems Corporation and NatWest Bancorp.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

Lehan was born in 1967 in Hollis Queens, New York, the son of Richard and Dorothy Lehan and the youngest of three siblings. He attended public school on Long Island where he excelled in math and science. Lehan demonstrated an insatiable interest in technology and electronics from an early age and would occasionally get into trouble taking apart household appliances to see how they worked. In 1986 Lehan enrolled at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue, New York. He attended class by day and worked nights to pay his tuition as a bartender and cook. In 1990, he graduated with a B.A. in Psychology and started work in the banking industry as a financial auditor. In 1997, he enrolled in business school at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York and in 2003 he earned his M.B.A. in Business Computer Information Systems.

CAREER

Interestingly, Lehan’s first job after college was in the banking industry as a financial auditor for NatWest Bancorp in New York. Despite having no previous training in finance and not having taken courses in accounting as an undergraduate, his first real job was a challenge at first. The key benefit of the job however was that he was exposed to every back-office function at NatWest and soon took a deep interest the mainframe accounting systems they used and the new micro computers just being introduced into business at the time. After a few years in the trenches as an auditor, Lehan was offered and accepted a job as a financial analyst for the bank's Consumer Credit Division. Lehan's interest in computer systems blossomed during this time and he was soon actively involved in managing the small computer systems for NatWest's CCD. In 1995 Lehan was offered and accepted yet another job at NatWest as Assistant Vice President of Financial Systems for the Controllers Division, his first job dedicated to information technology management. In 1996, Lehan left banking for the high-tech world. He accepted a position as manager of business systems for Coherent Communications, a fast growing telecommunications manufacturer based in Virginia. After a year at Coherent, Lehan realized that he needed the formal business education he lacked if he were to progress in information technology, the field he had come to love and chosen career. In 1997, Lehan made the difficult decision to become a full-time M.B.A student at Hofstra University, while continuing to work three days a week for Coherent. Lehan continued this grueling schedule for two years often traveling Monday through Wednesday between New York, Virginia and Chicago for Coherent, and then attending classes at Hofstra on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, often until 11:00P.M. All of this while raising his young daughter Jackie. In 1999, Coherent was acquired by Tellabs Systems Corporation, a $4B worldwide industry titan. Lehan led the IT transition team from Coherent to Tellabs....[more to come]