Larry Kaplan is a multi-faceted leader with broad experience from boot-strapped startups to the C-suite of profitable global companies, including funding, IPO and acquisition events. He is a strategic tactician with a service leadership style passionate about helping others succeed.
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Kaplan has engineering and law degrees and started his career as a patent litigation attorney at Brinks Gilson & Lione in Chicago. He joined his client, NAVTEQ, as their first in-house intellectual property counsel in 1995 rising to General Counsel in 2001 and then CEO in 2009. NAVTEQ, now HERE Technologies, is the leading provider of digital maps and real-time traffic enabling navigation, autonomous driving and location-based services around the world.
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At NAVTEQ, Kaplan began by launching the company’s patent program which contributed more than 1,000 patents to the nascent navigation industry. During his 16-year tenure, Kaplan advanced from Executive Vice President & General Counsel where he was part of a high-performing executive team that grew the company to profitability, took it public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2004 at a market cap of $2.1 billion and sold to Nokia in 2008 for $8.1 billion. Following acquisition, NAVTEQ continued to operate independently with Kaplan appointed CEO. While CEO, the company grew from $850 million to $1.4 billion in revenue with more than 5,000 employees located in 50 countries. Kaplan was also a member of Nokia’s senior executive team, reporting to two successive Nokia CEOs.
Kaplan exited NAVTEQ to revive the entrepreneurial passion that motivated him in earlier years, which he did through successive CEO roles first at Eudora Global and then at Impossible Objects. Eudora Global was a uniquely organized business creation and investment firm focused on accelerating the development of high potential enterprises. At Eudora, Kaplan helped to form Citizens Rx, a pharmacy benefits management firm that has grown to be a highly-profitable, multi-hundred-million dollar company. Impossible Objects is a 3D printing company with state-of-the-art technology for printing carbon fiber-reinforced parts. Kaplan led the company's evolution from “two brilliant guys in a lab” to an award-winning, revenue-producing operating company with customers including Ford Motor Company and the U.S. Air Force.
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Kaplan’s executive leadership skills and deep experience are grounded in his extensive legal background which he credits with helping him make better decisions, identify and assess risk, and get things done faster and more efficiently.
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Kaplan is a named inventor on dozens of patents. He is an active mentor, strategic advisor and board member of startup companies and their founders and CEOs. He is also a strategic advisor to OCA Ventures, a leading Midwest venture capital firm, and a CEO Mentor at Junto Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Kaplan also served for 10 years on the Board of Friends of the Chicago River, a nonprofit organization whose mission is making the Chicago River one of the world’s greatest metropolitan rivers.
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Kaplan earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was on Law Review and graduated with highest honors (Order of the Coif). Kaplan has a B.S. in General Engineering with highest honors, also from the University of Illinois. Following his graduation from law school, Kaplan served as law clerk to Honorable S. Jay Plager of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Washington, D.C.
Larry is a saltwater aquarium enthusiast and his other hobbies include fly fishing, cycling, pickleball and, more recently, golf.
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