Introduction to Tech Economics by Howard Rubin

Dr. Howard A. Rubin
President and CEO
howard.rubin@rubinworldwide.com

Dr. Howard A. Rubin is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He held the positions of being a MIT CISR Research Affiliate, a Gartner Senior Advisor, a BCG Senior Advisor, and a Nolan Norton Research Fellow. He has also advised all the world’s major consultancies and technology companies on benchmarking – BCG, McKinsey & Co, Deloitte, E&Y, PWC, Cap Gemini, TCS, Wipro, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Intel, Broadcom, VMware, Intuit, and others. He is the founder and CEO of Rubin Worldwide. In 1997, Industry Week named Dr. Rubin one of the top 50 “R&D Stars to Watch . . . an individual whose achievements are shaping the future of our industrial culture and America’s technology policy as a result of his bringing the IT workforce shortage to national attention”.

Dr. Rubin is a pioneer in the areas of digital & technology economics and has built the world's largest database in the field consisting of business, national, and technology data captured continuously since 1994. This database (initially released as the Worldwide Benchmark Project and today is the foundation for Gartner’s IT Key Metrics offering) is used by analyst firms such as Gartner Inc, among others. Using this database Dr. Rubin monitors technology-economic trends across companies and organizations in more than 20 sectors that account for roughly 20% of the world’s GDP and an equivalent amount of technology spending/investment. Dr. Rubin’s personal portfolio of client companies in total generate more than $1.5T in revenue to the global economy annually and account for more than $100B in yearly Information Technology (IT) spending. Dr. Rubin’s research and technology economic models helped shape the TBM (Technology Business Management) model and has been integrated into products such as Apptio.

In addition to his global data collection encompassing more than 350 financial services companies and 270 insurance companies annually, his financial services and insurance sector clients over the years include Aegon, Aetna, AIG, Allstate, AXA, American Express, ANZ, Bank of America, Bank of New York/Mellon , Barclays, Bank for International Settlements, Bank of Montreal, Bloomberg, CIGNA, CIT Group, Citi, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, CSS, DBS, Danske Bank, Deutsche Bank, Equitable Life, Fidelity, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, The Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Key Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Liberty Mutual, Lincoln Life, Manulife, Mass Mutual, MetLife, Morgan Stanley, MUFG/Union Bank, New York Life, Nomura, PNC Bank, Progressive, Prudential, Raymond James, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotia Bank, Standard Charter, State Farm, State Street, Sumitomo Mitsui, TD Ameritrade, Thomson Reuters, The Principal Financial Group, Toronto Dominion, Transamerica, UBS, Webster Bank, Wells Fargo, and Westpac among others. Dr. Rubin has done extensive work in other sectors inclusive of pharmaceuticals, consumer products, technology, media, energy, healthcare, transportation, and telecommunications over his 30+ years of working in the field.

Dr. Rubin has also worked directly with heads of state or their key ministers around the world in the development of national competitive technology strategies and job creation programs (Canada, Philippines, India, Singapore, and more). His work has been used extensively in the U.S. by former President William Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton and has been the subject of briefings to President Obama’s National Economic Council.

He is also the author of a Pearson/Financial Times video series on Technology Economics. His Technology Economics column regularly appeared in Wall Street and Technology. He also is a member of the TBM Council and on the Apptio CIO Advisory Council. Dr. Rubin possesses a Ph.D. from the City University of New York in Computer Science and Oceanography. Dr. Rubin started his academic career in one of the country’s first Computer Science departments at the City College of New York School of Engineering and then went on to help establish the Department of Computer Science at Hunter College in New York where he eventually became Chair. Dr Rubin has been an invited speaker at Harvard University and MUT’s Sloan School.

Dr. Rubin also developed the first widely-used software estimation system (ESTIMACS) and one of the first mouse-interface project management systems (PROJECTMACS). To market those products, Dr. Rubin developed one of the first PC-based presentation systems in the 1980’s (SOFTSLIDE) with an accompanying first-of-its-kind digital clip art library. Today’s PowerPoint can trace some of its lineage and features.

Outside the world of technology Dr. Rubin is former Chair of the Board of Riverkeeper and is currently a Trustee of the Waterkeeper Alliance. He was honored in 2016 by Riverkeeper with a “Big Fish Emeritus” award along with Leonardo DiCaprio and Ralph Lauren. He is also a supporter of the Clinton Foundation, a Leadership Council member of the RFK Foundation, a major contributor to student development programs/Film Fellows at the Tribeca Film Institute – In October 2018 the Institute honored Dr. Rubin with an award presented by Robert DeNiro for his “Extraordinary Leadership” at the New York Premiere of “A Star is Born”. Dr. Rubin is also a major supporter of PBS’ Masterpiece Trust, a former member of The Recording Academy, and a member of the NRDC’s Global Leadership Council.

Jed Rubin
Principal and Director of Operations for EMEA and Asia Pacific
jed.rubin@rubinworldwide.com

Mr. Jed Rubin has worked in the field of technology economics for more than 10 years. In addition to providing support to hundreds of global 2000 clients, Mr. Rubin has also been involved in academic research, product development, publications, and speaking engagements in North America and across Europe.

Prior to forming Rubin Worldwide with Dr. Howard Rubin, Mr. Jed Rubin worked at Gartner, where he served as Director of the Worldwide IT Benchmark Service, a service he led since its inception at META Group in 2002. (META Group was acquired by Gartner in 2005.) During this time, Mr. Rubin was responsible for the annual publication of the Worldwide IT Benchmark Report and META Group's IT Measurement Desk Reference, as well as other product development initiatives.

In addition, Mr. Rubin worked for Rubin Systems where he assisted in developing the Worldwide IT Benchmark Report and an IT Benchmarking Website, metricnet.com, which was acquired by META Group in 2000. Mr. Rubin also assisted in the writing of the Global New-Economy Index and the States Technology Index, both of which analyzed the technological competitiveness of several geographies. Research collaboration includes activity with MIT Sloan, INSEAD, the State of Ohio, the University of Texas, and The Property & Casualty Association of America.

Mr. Rubin holds a double bachelor's degree in psychology and Spanish from Oberlin College in Ohio. He earned an MBA from the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, Spain, where he is currently an associate professor. Mr. Rubin lives in Madrid and is fluent in Spanish.

Josh Rubin
Senior Associate
josh.rubin@rubinworldwide.com

Josh Rubin has spent over a decade working to harness the power of IT to unleash the potential of clinicians, researchers, public health professionals, patients, and all other health stakeholders to transform healthcare. An early proponent of person-centered Learning Health Systems (LHSs) that leverage analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to generate new knowledge to optimally inform decisions affecting health, Mr. Rubin has organized and catalyzed multi-stakeholder and transdisciplinary collaborative efforts to propel this movement forward. His work to advance an IT driven disruption of healthcare has seeded research to develop a transdisciplinary science of learning systems, galvanized technical and scientific communities of interest, coalesced a multi-stakeholder global movement, informed United States federal health IT strategy and policy, and supported public and private initiatives worldwide.

Since its inception, he has served as Program Officer for Learning Health System Initiatives at the University of Michigan Medical School’s first-of-its-kind Department of Learning Health Sciences; the vision for the department grew in part from National Science Foundation funded research in which Mr. Rubin played a leadership role. Mr. Rubin also serves as Executive Director and Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Joseph H. Kanter Family Foundation, the only philanthropic foundation founded by a patient advocating for patient empowering LHSs. Synergistically, he serves as founding President and CEO of the nonprofit Learning Health Community, a multi-stakeholder global movement to realize LHSs advancing individual, community, population, and public health.

Mr. Rubin served as a Senior Policy Fellow at eHealth Initiative (eHI) and as a Senior Consultant at IBM Global Business Services, working at the intersection of the health IT, health economics, health policy, consumer engagement, and public health arenas in both roles. Mr. Rubin has been recognized as a Disruptive Women in Health Care “Man of the Month” and an inaugural National Association for Trusted Exchange “Champion of Consumer Access”.

As a health IT scholar, researcher, advocate, and evangelist, he has published and presented extensively. He has advised and consulted for public and private organizations nationally and internationally. Fused with his work to realize LHSs, Mr. Rubin champions IT as a tool to advance patient empowerment and health equity; he has been a founder of and advisor to organizations advancing these causes. He also works to advance policy, practice, and research related to Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) of LHSs.

On a pro bono basis, Mr. Rubin serves as President of the Board of Promoting Awareness | Victim Empowerment (PAVE), a national nonprofit organization working to prevent sexual violence and empower survivors; he has volunteered for PAVE since 2005. He is a founding member of the Board of Singula Institute, a nonprofit organization working to realize a LHS for the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. Mr. Rubin also serves as moderator for the National Interoperability Collaborative’s opioid use disorder prevention group, engaging IT professionals as well as social services leaders nationwide. He has been appointed to committees and served in advisory roles for nonprofit industry associations (including the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, HIMSS) and federal government agencies (including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, AHRQ).

A valedictorian, a member of MENSA and Intertel, and a graduate of Georgetown University’s College of Arts and Sciences (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa), Mr. Rubin holds a Juris Doctor (JD) law degree from Georgetown University Law Center (Cum Laude) and is a member of the Virginia State Bar, the District of Columbia Bar, and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. He also holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from Georgetown University, as well as a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, all with healthcare concentrations (and all with high honors/distinction).