Richard J. Geruson

Biography

Richard Geruson was CEO of Lexmark, the multibillion-dollar, 10,000-employee Fortune 500 technology company; Phoenix Technologies, whose independent BIOS enabled the global PC ecosystem; and VoiceSignal, the AI startup that invented mobile phone voice recognition. He was senior vice president of Nokia, vice president of IBM and Toshiba, and a McKinsey & Company executive.

As GBSI Chairman and CEO, he provides AI-governance expertise to corporate boards across three continents, having served on 33 boards and 46 advisory boards, including the Leadership Council of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics in Silicon Valley.

As Lecturer in Religion and AI, Geruson taught at Harvard Divinity School (HDS) and is teaching its AI ethics executive-education program. He holds three graduate degrees from Oxford University, including a doctorate in economics, as well as a master’s from HDS. He attended Harvard Business School as a visiting scholar and previously served on its faculty.

His publications include A Theory of Market Strategy (Oxford University Press, 1992) and “AI Harms Are Not Ethically Inevitable” (Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Autumn/Winter 2025). His current research identifies the limits of AI value alignment due to emergent behavior and develops a framework for systematic vigilance in identifying and mitigating AI harms.