Richard E. Nohe

Richard Nohe is a senior executive specializing in process automation, legal advisory, and digital transformation—helping businesses, from start-ups to Global 100 firms, manage their risks and create value. Richard operates a portfolio model, acting as Managing Director for Valenta and Principal of —providing services across both legal and business domains.

He is recognized as a thought leader in his industry: in naming him 2015 Individual of the Year, the Legal500 said he is known for “his ability to understand and deal with issues before most people are aware of them”.

Richard served as General Counsel for British Telecom in the Americas, sitting on BT’s main company board of directors for the region, as well as on the board of BT Federal, a CFIUS mitigated entity handling US government classified work, helping to land a seat on the $50 billion GSA Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions framework contract.

In addition to his legal and corporate positions, Richard has a background in transformation. He serves as Managing Director for Valenta, building out US Central Region, with a focus on process automation and digital transformation. He led BT’s Digital Contracting efforts focused on the re-engineering of contract lifecycle processes for the legacy network portfolio as well as software platform growth portfolio.

Richard also led the legal and structure work stream for BT’s spinoff of Sencinet to a private equity firm. The deal covered domestic operations across 16 Latin American countries, including a 2650km fiber network, four data centers, and five teleports.

He joined MFN/Abovenet as one of the first 200 employees and helped it grow to become a NASDAQ-100 company. Most recently serving as VP Global Real Estate, managing over $1 billion in asset value with a 52-member team across 14 data centers, 200+ POPs, and over $100 million operating budget. He delivered 20% facilities management cost reductions of $5 million.

Prior to that role, Richard served as VP International & Managing Director Europe leading expansion into 16 cities in 8 countries and growing the European organization from zero to more than 200 staff in 18 months. During that time, he was also a member of the board of directors of Vicame, a three-party $260 million joint venture overseeing Bechtel’s construction of a fiber network connecting 8 cities across Germany.

During the 1990s, Richard was with NTT, serving as VP Law & Strategy, as well as General Manager Washington, DC office. He was instrumental in NTT’s obtaining a Section 214 license during a politically sensitive US-Japan trade dispute and led on the $100 million investment in Verio alongside a $1B IPO.

The Brookings Institution granted Richard a Congressional Fellowship through which he worked as a professional staff member on the US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee in the 104th Congress. He has also worked at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business participating in post-graduate research on the economic and regulatory issues surrounding the deployment of broadband networks and sat on the Advisory Board of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information.

Richard has a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Augusta University, a Master’s Degree in Telecommunications from NYU, a JD from New York Law School, and an Executive Certification in Organizational Design for Digital Transformation from MIT Sloan School of Management. He is admitted to practice law in New York State.