Francis McInerney

Francis McInerney is Managing Director of New York-based North River Ventures LLC, a consultancy that advises CEOs on how the falling cost of information alters their business models and grades their management performance.

He is a limited partner in London-based GMT Communications Equity Partners Fund II, Europe's only telecom and media specialist fund, and is a member of GMT's Industry Council.

Francis is part of the general partner of Denver-based Centennial Ventures Funds VI and VII that specialize in early-stage telecom and media investing. The limited partners he brought into Centennial Ventures include: NBC, NTT Communications, NTT DoCoMo, Harris, GE Capital, Bell Canada, Nortel Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, 3Com, Crown Castle, and C2HM-Hill.

In 1976, Francis McInerney co-founded Northern Business Information, a telecommunications industry market research company. In 1988, after building NBI into the largest firm in its market worldwide, McGraw-Hill Inc. made an unsolicited offer to buy the company.

His venture clients range from annual sales of a few hundred thousand dollars to sales of a few hundred million. His corporate clients have sales of up to $100 billion. He specializes in building their business models and strategic partnerships.

Francis has written four books on the impact of falling information costs on business organizations, the first three of which he co-authored with Sean White:

* Beating Japan, E.P. Dutton, 1993.

* The Total Quality Corporation, E.P. Dutton, 1995.

* FutureWealth, St. Martins, 2000.

* Panasonic, St. Martins, 2007.