Vladimir Shmunis Net Worth 2023: Education, Salary & Early Life

RingCentral is a well-known company in the communication industry and everyone is familiar with the name. The company is respected globally for its flexible and efficient communication technology. But not many people are familiar with the name Vladimir Shmunis, the co-founder and CEO of this cloud-based communications company. Shmunis is an American entrepreneur, a successful businessman and the brains behind the award-winning RingCentral company.

Shmunis created and launched RingCentral in 1999 along with his partner Vlad Vendrow who serves as the CTO for the company. The company became public in 2013 and it was only six years after that, Shmunis was able to achieve the status of a billionaire. Belonging originally from Ukraine, Shmunis and his family immigrated to the US in the 1970s. Before RingCentral, Vlad also founded enterprise software company RingZero Systems which he later sold to Motorola.

Vladimir Shmunis Salary & Net Worth 2023

Vladimir Shmunis Personal Life

Vladimir Shmunis was born in 1960 in Odesa, Ukraine (while Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union) to Svetlana Shmunis and Gregory Shmunis. In the 1970s, his parents moved to the United States and eventually got settled in San Francisco. He also has a younger sister. Vlad did his schooling from public schools in San Francisco only and later graduated from the San Francisco State University with a computer science degree. He did his master’s degree in computer science from the university later on.

Vladimir started his career as an engineer for a small start-up company in Silicon Valley. He eventually discovered that he does not have a very promising future and set out to create innovations of his own. He started his company RingZero Systems before making it big with RingCentral.

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Early Career & RingZero Systems

Although Vlad began his career with a corporate job, he always knew that with his vast knowledge of the software environment combined with the understanding of the marketplace, he could create something big. He, therefore, discontinued his job and went on to create more flexible and accessible communication solutions. It was Vlad’s desire to design a system that is free from the restrictions of traditional boxed services and thus RingCentral was born. Check Richest Ceo’s in the world

Before he found RingCentral, Vlad created a company named RingZero Systems that was intended to support other companies in creating communication systems best fitted to their requirements. Even though Vlad has very little experience in the market at the time, the company became a success, mainly because of his highly technical background in software engineering. Focused on small business communications on Microsoft Windows, RingZero became the number one supplier of desktop communication software. Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI) brought this company in 1994 after which Vlad took his next step toward an even greater innovation and came up with RingCentral.

RingCentral

Although RingZero was an amazing source of experience for Shmunis, it just wasn’t enough. He started working with Vlad Vendrow on a project to create a communication service that was cloud-based and RingCentral was born. In addition to communication services, the company provides collaboration products and services for businesses. RingCentral Office, RingCentral Professional, and RingCentral Fax are the pioneer products of RingCentral. The company has its headquarters in Belmont, California, and has offices around the world.

Unlike RingZero which was the brain-child of Shmunis solely, RingCentral was the effort of both partners. Vendrow has previously worked with Shmunis at RingZero too where he was the director of engineering.

Shmunis Family Innovation Award

Not only a billionaire businessman, Vladimir Shmunis is also a generous philanthropist. Along with his wife, Sandra, Shmunis is deeply committed to cancer research. The disease has unfortunately touched his family and many other families around the world are also badly under its grasp. Vlad therefore created the Shmunis Family Innovation Award to support the bold and creative research of Stanford cancer researchers. The award offers funding between $50,000 and $100,000 per project to develop and test potential new therapeutic drugs. With this award, Vlad aims to help make an impact by advancing research and bringing new cancer therapies.

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