Delivering superior enterprise value with an owner's mindset and innovative solutioneering.

Ralph Morales III

I've taken the path less traveled my entire professional career and it has made all the difference. 
My financial management roles moved beyond budgeting to an executive appreciation of value decision dialogue.  After leading a $1.2B InkJet Portfolio to > 20% ROIC, I left the core business to pursue new business creation. New business groups impressed with my critical analytical thinking pushed me into business development and early-stage solution sales.  Listening to customers and bridging modern innovation practices brought me into the innovation management realm.   

🚀 Driving Market Expansion & Revenue Growth via Strategic Partnerships

As Director, Healthcare Partnerships, I spearheaded the company’s expansion into FSA/HSA reimbursement, sleep medicine, and chronic care partnerships, driving $50M in revenue within the first 5 months and scaling to a $100M+ annual run rate.

🔹 FSA/HSA Business Line: Led a cross-functional team to achieve the first-ever SIGIS certification for a consumer wearable, enabling HRA reimbursement. Developed and executed Oura’s first HRA-compliant payment infrastructure, securing top-tier commerce partnerships with Amazon, FSA Store, and Optum. Managed contract negotiations with payment vendors and built a go-to-market strategy that transformed an emerging category into a multi-million-dollar business unit.

🔹 Sleep Medicine Partnerships: Built Oura’s first medical services partnerships with leading sleep medicine practices, integrating biometric feedback into clinical care. Led a matrixed team to execute industry-first studies validating wearable-enhanced telehealth with Welt, insomnia app integrations with Stellar Sleep, and apnea therapy onboarding with Ognomy. Developed a strategic partnership roadmap with ResMed,  positioning Oura as a key player in the sleep health ecosystem.

🔹 Chronic Care & Clinical Partnerships: Built and executed strategic partnership initiatives across cardiology, sleep medicine, and metabolic health, engaging with organizations such as American Heart Association, Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, UC San Diego, Kaiser Permanente, VA Hospitals, Dexcom, and Glooko.

With a proven ability to navigate regulatory pathways, develop high-impact partnerships, and drive commercial success, I thrive at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and business development—building scalable, revenue-generating solutions that advance digital health innovation.

#HealthcarePartnerships #BusinessDevelopment #DigitalHealth #SleepMedicine #Wearables #RevenueGrowth #StrategicAlliances

Sr. Director, Healthcare Partnerships

There are an abundance of opportunities within the digital health & wellness space.  Oura leads with a a #humanfirst approach based on clinical grade data, scientific stewardship of machine learning, and edutainment content that encourages Oura members to practice better health on a daily basis.  My role covers both sides of early stage strategic growth: 
    + The evaluation and sequencing of an opportunity portfolio where Oura can create and capture differentiated value. 
    + The development and/or de-risking of speculative strategic assumptions through LEAN experimentation and prototyping.

Sr. Director, Strategy & Innovation

Leveraging a career of managing program value within Finance (balancing budgeting and value uncertainty) combined with the past 5 years of Innovation accomplishment within large corporate environments to help Fortune 1000 clients achieve their innovation growth goals.

+ Growth Strategy Development
+ R&D Portfolio Management - in service of freeing up funds for profit growth. 
+ Innovation Lifecycle Coach/Pro Player - from empathy/job to be done thru lean in-world testing.  My passion is building new businesses on lean budgets.  While our company is primarily about capability building, sometimes clients just need to get things done....quickly. 
+ Under Development - An innovation accomplishment advantage.  I've worked and interviewed more than 25 innovation professionals.  I've found a gap in linking funding, uncertainty/de-risking, and action in the context of broader business value.  I'm ideating a solution.  Contact me, if interested.

Associate Director, Innovation

doGood was a DeFi escrow service for crowdfunded ICO projects.  The DApp addressed funder's pain points of lost contributions to development projects via a novel trust and transparency interaction: 
      1) Transparency of spending was achieved through an innovation management portal that quickly shared the development milestones and results from crowdfunded projects.
      2) Trust via an ETH based smart contract escrow process that provided crowdfunder governance of invested funds. Projects with successful milestones were released subsequent funding tranches, while doGood processed proportional refunds from unsuccessful projects.

What I learned:
       + Contextual software workflows for novice investors are challenging. 
       + Connecting ETH Blockchain solutions to web / mobile app front-ends was a wild west endeavor. 
           (Flashback: Game control development on early iPhone Apps - Windmill Apps)
       + (Great product + Novel Biz Model) * Bad Market Timing = Ramen Noodle burn-out
        + Funding comes from Revenue, Revenue comes from clients, and clients come from referrals.  Do WHATEVER it takes to breach the 1st user, without that every conversation is circular. 
      
New Skills:
     + Vetting partnerships quickly.  Getting to decision power.  Web / Application UI wireframe & prototyping (Stitch). In-world business model experimentation.
     + Money handler licensing and escrow compliance for California, New York, Texas, and Florida.

Chief Product Officer

Business Director for an IoT Office solution that makes work life better.   The leader of a stalwart band - 27 Direct + 18 Indirect - of disruptors with a wide spectrum of backgrounds and skillsets to deliver secure productivity experiences that enterprises value.   Seeker & cultivator of industry alliances to develop a sustainable competitive advantage for the purpose of cash flow longevity.  Mentor & Coach to young innovators across the company. 
    The solution provided large enterprises with superior physical & logical security compared to industry solutions, incentivized employee wellness, enhanced employee productivity,  reduced energy consumption, and performed analytics for operations optimization and emergency conditions.  User features included smart contract based PIM, phone-free  payment, and  OS agnostic identity integration.

Accomplishments
Secured "SEED" ($700k) + "Series A" ($2.2M) funding for IoT Office initiative business creation from executive sponsors.
Cultivated to Term Sheets "Series B" alliance partnerships worth $15M in program capital. 
Fostered a learning & empowered organization that: 
  + scoped novel additive manufacturing & deployment technologies to lower product cost
  + delivered additional product features without compromising base functionality
  + completed GtM & Buyer insights that pivoted the prevailing channel premise.
  + concluded "Series A" round 12% under budget & 2 months ahead of schedule. 
Voice of Workforce pulse scores for Engagement, Transparency, Trust- in Top 10%

Director of Innovation & Incubations

Strategy Shokunin. Innovation Evangelist. Incubation Führer.  Responsibilities: Conduct  assessments of business opportunities in spaces outside current lines of business (IoT, Wearables, Virtual & Augmented Reality), speak publicly about innovation at HP Labs, lecture internally on Lean Methodology for business development, propose business plans to executive staff and when approved tactically execute them to market launch. 


Accomplishments
Lean Method maniac for novel technologies: 
 + IoT Retail - Dynamic Pricing Solution in-market trial within 3 months
 + IoT Home - Energy & Insurance Solution leveraging printer power supplies within 4 months
 + IoT School - Personalized Education (k-8) in-market trial and partnerships within 5 months
 + Retail Payment Disruption - Blockchain based P2B/P2P Application Experiment
 + Business Plan & Recommendation for Disruptive Display Technology - Digital Paper
 + IoT Law Enforcement - Patrol Office.   Client proposal to tradeshow functional in 3 months, productized 8 months later.  $15M TCV contract negotiation & closure. 
 
Strategy Leadership  for Virtual & Augmented Reality (Personal Systems)
    + cross-organizational virtual team 
    + Term Sheet negotiation with both Tier 1 Location Based Entertainment VR partners 
    + Stage 3 Contract with Location Entertainment worth $30M TCV

Innovation Architect

Responsible for all business related efforts - anti-sales, product marketing, program management, current business management, and budgeting for a $200M business unit. Co-Leader and architect of Global Business Unit shut-down.

Accomplishments
Successfully negotiated the un-wind of multi-year contracts with global retailers without incurring legal penalties. 
Brought business unit to profitability.  Outperformed closure Op. Loss budget by 17%. 
Voice of Workforce scores improved from 3rd quartile to 1st quartile of Business Group

Business Operations & Strategy Director | Retail Publishing

Lead the Business Operations and Strategy team within Retail Publishing Solutions. BizOps played a critical role in defining and driving strategic, operational and organizational improvements across the group. As a high-profile, high-impact team working across the globe, BizOps worked on a range of critical projects and issues--from growth strategies for exciting new products; to engineering prioritization and global sales force alignment; to partner development and strategy work in emerging markets such as China and Japan.

Accomplishments
   Created structured financing vehicle used in 80% of solution sales motions. 
   Established deal lifecycle framework for complex commercial solution sales.
   Sales development, compensation, and training - consultative selling.
   Strategic alliance of non-HP solutions that increased portfolio revenue 20%.
   Managed prioritization of 300 FTE software and hardware team for global client initatives.

Director of Business Operations & Strategy, Retail Publishing

Lead the stand-up of a new Product Line within HP including Enterprise Reporting configuration, headcount, revenue, cost of sales, expense, and balance sheet structuring. Aquisition strategy and integration oversite. Devleopment of green financial  analysts and graduate interns.  This assignment included the development of a financial transaction platform to enable a retail photo solution. 

Accomplishments
Lead Pan-HP team to develop micropayment processing center. 1.85% + 2c / transaction in 2005!
Integration of outsourced stored value solution
Aquisition Strategy & Integration of $X0M Silverwire & Tabloo photo solution software co.'s
Co-Development of RPS Commercial Contracts
7 Quarters of Revenue / Expense Management +/- 2% of Budgeted Performance.

Controller, Retail Publishing Solutions

Member of a small leadership team responsible for developing value from HP's intellectual property outside of printing space.  With little resources and broad scope,  responsibilities ranged from market investigation and scouting, business plan development, innovator mentoring, financial modeling, and idea funnel management.  Segments: Life Sciences, Projection, Energy, and Networked Sensors. $70M Expense Portfolio.  I was requested by two SVP's to join an IPG special project team to manage a financial portfolio of cost reduction intiatives. 

Accomplishments
Co-Development of IP out-licensing process: stages, model, and administration. 
Master Certification in Business workshop consulting from SmartOrg.
Facilitated more than 15 business plan workshops leading to HP license & product revenue of $X00M.
Funded Speaker at Innovation Conferences & Stanford's Exec. Ed. Risk Management Program
Led financial resources for $X.xB cost reduction (Lead Dog) - including McKinsey supervision.
Nominated for STAR - Superior Talent Acceleration & Retention training program  1/200 Master IC's

Sr. Business Analyst, New Business Creation

One of two financial professionals responsible for Value Management of HP's Imaging & Printing R&D Portfolios.  I was responsible for the High-End Printer - InkJet Office, Large Format, Commercial and LaserJet - Development initiatives.  I provided portfolio management of a $500M R&D budget to seven platform general managers. 

Accomplishments
    Established Financial Metrics for development lifecycle checkpoints (eNPV, NPVi, CFROI, and Dev Index)  - original metrics pack still in use in 2013! 
    Integrated development portfolio of Inkjet & LaserJet product initiatives freeing $35M of R&D.
    Taught uncertainty modeling via CrystalBall to 75 member global finance team of IPG Finance. 
    Aquisition lead analyst for $X00M Indigo Printing Division.
    LEAD Nomination - 1st Time Manager Leadership Training  - 1/80 across entire HP Individual Contributor base.

Sr. Financial Analyst, Printing R&D

HP Finance Development program hire.  My home role was within the Inkjet Business Unit supporting the Marketing Function.  Responsible for budgetary management of $180M of global marketing activities in a hyper growth (+60% YoY) segment accounting for 90% of HP's Operating Profits. Responsible for business planning for Core Marketing & Usage Growth Initatives. Performed 3 month rotations through relevant I/S departments: Warranty, IC Fab Costing, IJ Cartridge Mfg., and Supply Chain. 

Accomplishments
    Development of portfolio tool for global expense & headcount planning.
    Business plan analyst for content delivery, on-site supplies vending, & recycling standards. 
    Legal financial outcome analysis for Anti-Competitive lawsuit. (HP successful defense).