Charlotte Belk College Of Business Hosts One Of The Most Interesting People You’ll Ever Meet
Belk College C-Suite Speaker Series draws largest crowd ever
Red Ventures co-founder and CEO Ric Elias called himself “the accidental CEO” as he talked with UNC Charlotte students at the Belk College of Business C-Suite Speaker Series on Feb. 11, 2025.
“There’s zero chance I should be sitting here if you saw how I grew up and my journey,” Elias said. Yet, here he sat in the Popp Martin Student Union, telling his story to hundreds of students in an informal chat with Belk College Dean Richard Buttimer. The talk drew the largest audience in the 10-year history of the series, including University and Belk College leaders in addition to students from across campus.
A native of Puerto Rico, Elias graduated from Boston College and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He co-founded RV in 2000, mere months before the dot-com bubble burst. The company weathered the financial storm and is now a diverse portfolio of brands and businesses that help millions of people make life’s most important decisions.
“From his humble beginnings growing up in Puerto Rico, to surviving a harrowing near disaster known as the Miracle on the Hudson, Ric is one of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet,” said Chancellor Sharon L. Gaber, introducing Elias. “He also happens to be a genuinely nice guy. Ric has a heart for helping others and has been incredibly generous in supporting humanitarian efforts and establishing nonprofits that have created economic mobility for thousands of young people.”
Taking responsibility
Elias’s higher education path mirrored that of many Charlotte students, with demands on his time and his resilience — and a need to stitch together a patchwork of funding to pay for his studies. Scholarships covered one-third of undergraduate expenses, while his father paid one-third, and student loans made up the final one-third.
“It helped that I had to work 25 hours a week while I was in college,” he said. “It helped that I had student loans when I graduated, and it helped that my dad was helping me. I was given a chance to feel responsibility really early on and commitment to what that journey was.”
Following Boston College, he landed a role with General Electric. “They had a training program similar to what we do in Red Ventures, and they had an assignment in Tokyo,” he said. “So, at 23, barely knowing English, I ended up moving to Tokyo for six months.”
Once there, he volunteered to help the company’s leader in Tokyo with paperwork, getting up every morning at 5 a.m. to fax documents to the United States because of the time difference. Elias’s humility and hard work led to a permanent position and a recommendation letter on his behalf to Harvard Business School.
“No job has ever been below me,” he said. “When I was in college, I was a limo driver. At night I hustled; I worked parking security. Nothing in life is beneath me. Life is about taking whatever opportunity comes, sometimes not knowing what life’s going to bring, doing your very best, and then life will bounce your way.”
His time at Harvard Business School was intimidating, especially in early days. “This is all the elite people, and I still wasn’t confident in my English,” he said. “I still struggled to read at a pace. And at Harvard, 10% of the class fails. So, you walk in and it’s a forced curve.”