Tom Adams, born in Stockholm, educated in England, and onetime commodities trader from the Philippines to China, has taken his multilingual experience to help teach millions how to communicate in a foreign tongue and make his company money doing it.
Adams is CEO of the language-learning company Rosetta Stone. It’s a company that’s become wildly successful by replicating through computer technology the type of immersion in a foreign language that Adams got growing up in France and Britain, and by traveling much of the globe, from Germany to Mongolia.
Rosetta Stone’s approach to learning a second or even third language is simple: Instead of having students stare at a blackboard and memorize grammar, it uses images of real-life situations to convey meaning and trigger understanding, the natural method that helped most of us pick up our first language.
The idea for Rosetta Stone’s interactive language program didn’t begin with Adams, who’s been CEO there since 2003. But his life experience and leadership have helped propel the company from $10 million in revenue to nearly $300 million in less than a decade.
“I’m Swedish, grew up in France, moved to England when I was 10, and had really immersive experiences to draw on and to inspire me at Rosetta Stone,” says Adams, who spent six years buying and selling raw materials in Mongolia, the Philippines and other parts of the globe.
He took the company public in April of last year when few businesses dared to launch an initial public stock offering in the midst of a deep recession and great economic uncertainty.
The IPO came at a time when businesses, especially, realized how intertwined the world’s economy is and how increasingly important it is to know a foreign language. His innovations and success led to his being chosen Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
Adams anticipates…