Clarity Partners – Communications, Media and Business Services Private Equity Investors

Head Count: A Not-So-Retiring Retirement; Harry Bosco Goes from
Lucent to VC

September 18, 2000
Red Herring - By Julie Landry

While at Lucent Technologies for the last 35 years, Harry Bosco had many long-winded titles: consumer products chief technical officer; wired technology and initial production center vice president; president of the network systems broadband networking unit; chief operating officer for the optical networking group; and chief technical officer of service provider networks.

Now that he's semi-retired, he's got a much shorter one: special venture partner at Clarity Partners . Technically, Mr. Bosco doesn't finish at Lucent until October 16, but in reality, he's already kicking back in Florida.

Although the 55-year-old exec was very much looking forward to years of golf and beaches, "nobody wanted me to retire," he says. Amid a series of offers for full-time positions, he picked a more flexible post at Clarity, whose managing general partner David Lee is a former Global Crossing president with whom he worked closely while at Lucent.

But what exactly is a special venture partner? Many venture capital firms have venture partners, usually gray-haired execs who function as loosely associated part-time partners to pitch in on relevant deals. Mr. Bosco insists that as a special venture partner, he'll work nearly as hard as the full-timers. "I understand the infrastructure, Dave [Lee] knows the business and Rudy [R. Rudolph Reinfrank, also a managing general partner] the financial side," he says.

"I'll be able to look at the technology and see how it fits in with the overall architecture that the carriers are going to put in place," adds Mr. Bosco, noting that Clarity will focus on niches within the infrastructure space, including wireless, optical, Internet protocol, and emerging carriers. "I'm really a technologist with some business savvy."

Despite the new role, Mr. Bosco will still squeeze in some retirement pleasures, maintaining homes in New Jersey (where he was based with Lucent) and Beverly Hills (near Clarity's Los Angeles office) and traveling worldwide looking for investments.

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