Systems Contractor News, a sister brand to TV Tech, recently announced the new inductees to its Hall of Fame for 2024. Among the honorees was Dave Ross, CEO of Ross Video. The following is SCN Content Director Mark Pescatore's profile:
Although he officially joined the company in 1991, David Ross has been a part of Ross Video since he was about 9 years old. He has a vivid memory of watching his father, John, working with a graphic designer on the company logo at the time.
It may seem like it was destiny, but David almost didn't build his career with the family business. He had plans to work for a big tech company or possibly for NASA as an engineer. But after he shared his potential future plans, his mother pulled him aside and told him his father had always assumed David would come to work with him at Ross Video.
As David recalled, Ross Video was a one-product company (video switchers) at the time—and after a particularly difficult recession, his father was one signature away from selling the company. Instead, they decided to work together to save it.
And did they ever. The Canada-based company has not just survived but thrived, improving its revenue from $2.5 million in 1991 to about $400 million today. Under David's leadership, Ross Video has enjoyed a pattern of consecutive growth lasting 32 consecutive years. David became president of the company 20 years ago and added the title of CEO in 2006.
Ross Video is known for a variety of product lines, from its production switchers to its XPression graphics, Ultrix routers, Spidercam robotic cameras, D3 LED displays, and … socks? Like so many other companies, Ross Video has offered a variety of promotional items over the years, including socks.
During the company's keynote at the 2019 NAB Show, David jokingly launched Socks 2.0—and the online chat exploded. So, the company decided to, well, run with it. The result has been a regular dose of levity at their annual event, as well as a sock drawer for the CEO that's half-filled with company-branded stockings.
Technically speaking, David is an engineer. He earned a degree in computer engineering from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and helped redesign the company's switcher software while he was a co-op student. You can see his most recent handiwork in the look and feel of TouchDrive 4, the company's latest family of control surfaces for live production. However, business was basically his unofficial minor at the university—and he's spent plenty of time educating himself to the point where he considers himself more of a businessman these days.
Ross Video maintains a strategy of "integrated diversity," which means it only expands its product offerings through companies and technologies that "touch on the edges of what we already do," he explained. As a result, the company benefits from utilizing the same sales, R&D, and manufacturing teams, while targeting the same verticals and customers with new products and services. The company's strategic acquisitions have also added resources across countries and continents.
"I think what we're doing works really well," David said. "I love exploring new technologies and finding ways to make customers more successful."
While traditionally known as a broadcast company more than a Pro AV company, that perception of Ross Video may be changing. In late October, David congratulated the sports and live events team, because its sales surpassed broadcast sales for the first time. "Broadcast equipment has been getting cheaper, and I think Pro AV needs are getting more sophisticated," he said.
More than 30 years in, David, 58, is still excited about the company his father started in the 1970s with an analog switcher. "You wake up every morning with a list of things to do that's different from the week before," he said. "There's nothing like the multiple dimensions of running a company like Ross."
