Board Roles

Bill has served on numerous public company boards over the years.  A few highlights include:

Immersion (current): Bill joined the board of this provider of haptics technology in 2019.  Since then, Immersion has generated significant book value and currently enjoys a significant net cash and investment position thanks to strong operating profits and thoughtful capital allocation.  Immersion pays a regular dividend and has often repurchased shares.

Barnes & Noble Education (current): Bill joined the board of BNED in June 2024 and is currently Chair of the Board.  BNED operates approximately 650 physical college bookstores, including for leading institutions such as Harvard, Notre Dame, Penn State, Rutgers, University of Pennsylvania, and many others.  Immersion owns more than 40% of the equity of BNED.

Vitesse Semiconductor:  Bill joined the board as part of Raging Capital’s work to recapitalize and turn around this provider of networking semiconductors.  The company was successfully acquired by Microsemi.  A detailed case study is available here.

Salary.com: Bill joined the board after Raging Capital accumulated a material position in the aftermath of 2008 in this leading provider of compensation data.  During his time there, he helped to bring in a new CEO as well as spearhead the successful sale of the company to Kenexa (a public company which was later acquired by IBM).

Bankrate:  Bill spent nearly ten years on the board of this leading marketplace for consumer loan and interest rate data.  The board role was hands-on and included direct consulting in the early years, as the company had to be restructured and turned around after the dot-com implosion.  Over Bill’s tenure, Bankrate became very profitable and made a number of successful acquisitions.  Bankrate stock increased 1,500% from when Bill joined the board in 2000 until it was sold in 2009, and at one point was up more than 200x from its year-end 2000 lows and mid-2000 (pre-2008) highs.