Vice Chair

Rick Kash serves as Vice Chair of Nielsen. Appointed to this role in January 2012, Rick joins Chief Executive Officer David Calhoun and Vice Chair Susan Whiting in the Office of the CEO.

Most recently, Rick was Chairman of The Cambridge Group, a part of Nielsen and one of the world’s preeminent growth strategy consulting firms. Rick was also the founder of the firm.

Rick is the co-author (with Nielsen CEO David Calhoun) of How Companies Win and is the author of The New Law of Demand and Supply: The Revolutionary New Demand Strategy for Faster Growth and Higher Profits.

Prior to founding The Cambridge Group, Rick co-founded Nielsen’s micro-marketing supermarket and mass merchandiser information system used by more than 90% of consumer packaged goods marketers.

Rick is a member of the U.S. Senate Business Forum, a group of 36 businesspeople selected by U.S. senators. The group meets with Senators and Cabinet members on a quarterly basis to provide independent views on national matters affecting the economy and U.S. business performance.

Rick serves on a number of community and business boards and speaks frequently to business groups on the subject of business growth. He is the past president of the Better Boys and Girls Foundation and The Huff Scholarship Foundation for underprivileged children. Along with John Mackey and Jack Kemp, he founded the NFL Players Awards Dinner, which has raised $27,000,000 for underprivileged children.

For the past 18 years, Rick has actively participated in funding cancer research in the U.S., as well as in Europe and Japan. He serves as the Chairman of Genus Oncology, a research partnership with Harvard's Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

A native of Chicago, Rick is a graduate of DePaul University.