How this family’s video-tech firm balances explosive growth with fiscal caution — SkimNews
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- Ross Video has averaged roughly 17% annual growth for three decades without outside investment, now employing about 1,500 people and serving more than 10,000 customers across dozens of countries
- John Ross founded the company in 1974 with $7,500 in savings and a hand-built video switcher; David Ross joined in 1991 after graduating from the University of Waterloo and became president in 2004 after John retired
- The company's technology has powered Olympics coverage, productions at California's SoFi Stadium, and Taylor Swift's 2023-2024 Eras Tour concerts
- David Ross says the firm is targeting $1 billion in revenue by 2030 and is pursuing a "private secondary transaction" with institutional investors rather than an IPO, since shares have grown too valuable for individual buyers
- David Ross, 60, says his children in their 20s are pursuing their own careers and are unlikely to join the business, calling it "a little irresponsible and maybe narcissistic" to install family members based on lineage alone
- The company maintains both succession and emergency contingency plans that its HR department and board review regularly, per KPMG family-office partner Chris Gandhu, who says planning is "not a question of 'if,' it's a question of 'when'"
Why it matters: Family-owned Canadian tech firms rarely sustain 17% annual growth for three decades without external capital, and Ross Video's 1,500 employees and 10,000+ global customers show the model works at scale. The planned private secondary transaction reveals the company has outgrown individual-investor liquidity while still avoiding public-market pressure — a deliberate trade-off. David's explicit disqualification of his own children from succession breaks with the dynastic pattern typical of family enterprises, putting formal succession and emergency plans in place instead.
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