Ryan Roney of Vistage International Honored by SDBJ

SAN DIEGO, CA, OCTOBER 15, 2013—The San Diego Business Journal recently honored Ryan Roney with the inaugural General Counsel of the Year Award in the small privately held company category. This award recognizes attorneys for demonstrable achievements across the full spectrum of in-house responsibility. Awardees must distinguish themselves through their determination, resolve and achievements, and must demonstrate outstanding character, ethics and integrity.

As Chief Legal Officer and Executive Vice President of Business Development at Vistage International, Roney oversees all legal matters within the company that require legal advice and business judgment. He is also responsible for Vistage’s business development function to implement corporate growth opportunities. In that capacity, he closed a strategic transaction to license Vistage in mainland China.  He also helped to implement Vistage’s regional strategic plan to increase domestic growth, and managed the legal and intellectual property matters associated with Vistage’s rebranding. Roney also played an integral role in the transition from Vistage’s prior, long-term owners to TowerBrook Capital Partners L.P. and Education Growth Partners, who purchased Vistage International in November 2012.

Charitable work was also a part of the judgment criteria for this award. Roney is a co-founder of Warm Springs Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to developing and manufacturing retro-fitted ocean shipping containers to provide hot, purified water to areas impacted by extreme poverty and natural disasters.  He serves as a Senior Advisor to The National Warrior Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to successfully transition to a productive life once back in the United States.  He has also participated in the Meals 4 Haiti program, in which members of his local community purchased and hand-packed over 110,000 ready-to-eat meals for struggling Haitian people and successfully resolved on a pro-bono basis a landlord-tenant dispute for a quadriplegic man in his local community.

Roney is a member of the California State Bar and State Bar of Michigan. He received a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law. He started his career as an Associate working at the law firm White & Case. Prior to beginning his tenure at Vistage in 2012, Roney was Chief Compliance Officer for Powerwave Technologies, Inc., a NASDAQ listed telecommunication business. He previously served as General Counsel of Smiths Detection’s global business, a $1 billion division of Smiths Group plc, a FTSE 100 company based in the UK.

About Vistage International
Founded in 1957 and headquartered in San Diego, Calif., Vistage assembles and facilitates private advisory boards for CEOs, senior executives and business owners. Vistage members participate in monthly, Chair-led, private advisory board meetings. More than 17,000 members in 15 countries also have access to one-to-one executive coaching, expert speakers and our global network of business leaders.

Media Contact: 
Leo Bottary 
Vistage International
858.509.5854  leo.bottary@vistage.com