Angel Ruiz, Cuban American success story

 We always enjoy reading about Cuban American success stories. Let me tell you about my friend Angel Ruiz:

“In 1968, 12-year-old Angel Ruiz heard those words from his father, who had awakened him and his 8-year-old brother, Carlos, in the middle of the night as they slept on the floor of Cuba’s Havana Airport. The father told the boys that he and their mother were being taken away for searches they had to undergo as part of a program to get the family out of the country that Fidel Castro controlled. He added that he did not know exactly why they were being taken—or whether the boys would ever see them again.

Nearly five decades later, that 12-year-old boy now runs a large portion of the U.S. and Canada operations of Sweden-based Ericsson, one of the two biggest suppliers of hardware and software used in telecommunications networks of companies like Verizon and Dallas-based AT&T. (The other dominant player is Nokia.) Of Ericsson’s roughly 16,000 North American employees, 9,500 report to Ruiz, including most of the 3,600-plus people at the company’s North American headquarters in Plano. The 59-year-old leader, whose title is head of Ericsson Region North America, saw annual revenue for his piece of the company hit $8 billion in 2014—compared with $500 million when he took the helm in 2001. “

You can read the whole story here! It’s worth sharing with your friends.  Angel has met many challenges with courage and a wonderful personality.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve known Angel for many years. My brother, Angel and I spent a lot of hours listening to Alvarez-Guedes LPs and eating our mothers’ Cuban dishes.

P. S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.