The World Business Academy is pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Shelton as Vice President and Program Lead of Sustainable Projects. He will be focused on developing new programs around innovative and sustainable uses for underperforming real estate assets. His appointment is effective immediately.
Mr. Shelton has been involved with the Academy since 2017, and currently also serves as President of Shangrila Group, Inc. since 2017. The Shangrila Group was formed by Academy founder, Rinaldo S. Brutoco and his wife Lalla, over 20 years ago. The entity serves as an investment and consulting organization for the Brutoco’s for-profit business interests and as a way to demonstrate the World Business Academy’s founding principles of building businesses and investing in purposeful innovations that help people and contribute positively to the health of the planet. Shelton has helped the World Business Academy and The Shangrila Group’s founders reach their business and for-profit financial goals so they, in turn, can dedicate more time and resources to their non-profit and community interests.
Shelton enjoys participating on teams that make purposeful things happen. He is skilled at taking an idea and drawing together the research, the team and the required administrative approvals to realize a vision. Shelton has over 30 years of experience as an innovator and business leader, starting in the mid-1980’s when he co-founded a real estate development company that was responsible for building the Palm Springs Convention Center and its attached headquarters hotel complex; and subsequently, a lifestyle entertainment center located immediately across from the main entrance to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. In 2006, Shelton founded Private Access, Inc., a software development company, to build a search engine for providing permissioned access to otherwise confidential documents and sensitive personal information. He contributed a number of patents to the effort, wrote the business plan, raised over $10 million in funding, and hired and managed a staff of professionals responsible for building the platform In 2009, Private Access was acknowledged as #12 on the Forbes list of “America’s Twenty Most Promising Companies” and received “Hot Product of the Year” honors from a leading health information conference. The company built and oversees a software system that remains in use by over 30,000 patients and dozens of non-profit disease support groups.
Shelton’s varied business experience further includes having served as president of an entertainment retailer, where he raised capital and coordinated technology development for one of the nation’s first digital photography studios; and having for 7 years served as chairman of a national non-profit organization serving individuals born with a rare genetic variation. Shelton is the inventor of seven issued patents, as well as multiple currently pending U.S. and International patent applications. He earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Texas at Austin.
