Partners

Lynda Lawrence is Chief Idea Officer at Ideaworks Consulting, and teaches Innovation at the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. She has more than 30 years experience with a wide range of clients from multiple industries, government agencies and nonprofits, and has won more than 500 awards for her creativity and public service. She has a Masters in Organizational Development from the Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University and is a graduate of the Executive Program in Innovation and Organizational Change from the JFK School of Government at Harvard University.

William Hernández Requejo is president and a senior consultant of Requejo Consulting, Inc., a California corporation specializing in the area of international management consulting, international business development, international negotiations and organizational development. He has worked with multinational corporations, on a wide variety of projects. Mr. Hernández also teaches Advanced Negotiations, International Business Negotiations, International Expansion, and International Marketing at four different schools across the United States. He was the founding Director of the Asturias Business School in Spain.

Lothar Katz is an advisor in the field of international business and the founding president of Leadership Crossroads, an international and cross-cultural management consultancy in Dallas, TX whose client list includes several Fortune 500corporations. He is the author of Negotiating International Business – The Negotiator's Reference Guide to 50 Countries Around the World and a regular contributing author to NBIZ Magazine. Mr. Katz teaches International Business, International Negotiation, and International Project Management at four different schools across the United States. In 2007, he received the DFW Asian American Citizens Council's prestigious Chair's Award and Member of the Year Award.

William Hernández Requejo is president and a senior consultant of Requejo Consulting, Inc., a California corporation specializing in the area of international management consulting, international business development, international negotiations and organizational development. He has worked with multinational corporations, on a wide variety of projects. Mr. Hernández also teaches Advanced Negotiations, International Business Negotiations, International Expansion, and International Marketing at four different schools across the United States. He was the founding Director of the Asturias Business School in Spain.

N. Mark Lam. Previous to his current position as CEO of Live365.com Internet Radio (the world's largest internet radio network), Mark Lam specialized in forming global alliances and resolving business and legal conflicts arising from business transactions, mostly involving global high-tech companies. Representative clients include global companies such as Philips Electronics and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., the latter a top BusinessWeek INFOTECH 100 company and one of the largest foreign investors and manufacturers of high tech products in China.

Lam was born Taiwan and lived in Asia, and completed high school, college, and professional schools in the United States.  Upon obtaining his J.D. from the University of California (Hastings) in 1983, he went on to earn his M.B.A. from UCLA (Anderson) in 1985. Lam began his career with G.M./Hughes Aircraft Company in strategic planning and business analysis.  He then became a senior investment manager at Dynafund, an international high-tech venture capital firm.  Subsequently at Geneva Company, a leading middle market business valuation and M&A firm headquartered in Irvine, California, he advised middle market companies. Following his corporate work Lam began his legal practice in Seattle, Washington and later settled back in California.  Most recently, Lam successfully represented Hon Hai (a.k.a. Foxconn) in a number of high profile patent infringement lawsuits against U.S. and overseas defendants.

Lam has published articles in magazines and newspapers here and abroad including the Harvard Business Review, Hong Kong Economic Journal, Economic Daily Journal, and Wealth Magazine.  In the 2000 and 2004 elections, Lam served as a Presidential Elector at the Electoral College and has appeared on CNN, Good Morning Asia, and the BBC. Lam is fluent in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Fukienese; and his multicultural, multilingual, and high-tech background enables him to do trans-Pacific work with unique perspectives and capabilities.

James Day Hodgson was U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 1974 to 1977 and U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1970 to 1973. Previous to his governmental service he was an executive with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation (1941-1968) and held positions with the firm as vice president, industrial relations, and senior vice president, corporate relations. He has served as a corporate director of twelve companies, including Hewlett-Packard and Mitsui Bank, and consultant to nine others, including Toyota, Manufacturers' Bank, and Hill & Knowlton's Japan Unit. He has taught or served on advisory boards of more than twenty major universities including UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, and Penn State. His civic activities have included the National Red Cross Board of Governors, director of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships. He was named to the Order of the Rising Sun, First Class, by the Japanese government in Tokyo in 1982.

Yoshihiro Sano is the founder and president of Pacific Alliance Group, an international investment and banking and consulting firm. Prior to that, he was a principal at Ernst & Young's western regional office, where he formed the Japanese Business Group. As an expert in Japanese business practices, he has assisted numerous American and other international firms on acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures with Japanese strategic partners. Sano was the founding associate director of the International Business Education and Research (IBEAR) Program at the University of Southern California. His books include Introduction to Category Management. He is also a frequent contributor to Japanese food and retail professional journals.

William Hernández Requejo is president and a senior consultant of Requejo Consulting, Inc., a California corporation specializing in the area of international management consulting, international business development, international negotiations and organizational development. He has worked with multinational corporations, on a wide variety of projects. Mr. Hernández also teaches Advanced Negotiations, International Business Negotiations, International Expansion, and International Marketing at four different schools across the United States. He was the founding Director of the Asturias Business School in Spain.

See http://requejoconsulting.com/

Philip R. Cateora is Professor Emeritus, The University of Colorado at Boulder. Received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin where he was elected to Beta Gamma Sigma. In his academic career at the University of Colorado he has served as Division Head of Marketing, Coordinator of International Business Programs, Associate Dean, and Interim Dean. His teaching has spanned a range of courses in marketing and international business from fundamentals through the doctoral level. He received the University of Colorado Teaching Excellence Award and the Western Marketing Educator's Association's Educator of the Year Award. Professor Cateora has conducted faculty workshops on internationalizing principles of marketing courses for the AACSB and participated in designing and offering similar faculty workshops under a grant by the Department of Education. In conjunction with these efforts, he co-authored Marketing: An International Perspective, a supplement to accompany principles of marketing texts. Professor Cateora has served as consultant to small export companies as well as multinational companies, served on the Rocky Mountain Export Council, and taught in management development programs. He is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business.

Mary C. Gilly is Professor of Marketing at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine. She received her B.A. from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, her M.B.A. from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and her Ph.D. from the University of Houston. Dr. Gilly has been at UCI since 1982 and has served as Vice Dean, Associate Dean, Director of the Ph.D. Program and Faculty Chair in the school of business as well as the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies for the campus. She has been on the faculties of Texas A&M University and Southern Methodist University, and has been a visiting professor at the Madrid Business School and Georgetown University.

Professor Gilly has been a member of the American Marketing Association since 1975 and has served that organization in a number of capacities, including Marketing Education Council, President, Co-Chair, 1991 AMA Summer Educators' Conference, and member and chair of the AMA-Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award Committee. She currently serves as Academic Director for the Association for Consumer Research. Professor Gilly has published her research on international, cross-cultural, and consumer behavior topics in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing, California Management Review and other venues.

Sharon Graham Niederhaus. Based on her recent thesis at Stanford University, Sharon Graham Niederhaus is currently co-authoring a book with the working title “Together Again: The Benefits of Extended Family Living.”  Directed at baby boomers and their children, it is about the changing culture of America and the trend for three generations to live together again.  Utilizing material from her recent master’s thesis on accessory units, the book tells the stories of people who are involved in multi-generational living arrangements and how they do it.  She has a Master of Liberal Arts degree from Stanford University, and a BA in Sociology/Anthropology from Mills College.  Niederhaus also has five California Teaching Credentials, including the Administrative, General Pupil Personnel, General Secondary, General Elementary, and Learning Handicapped.

Niederhaus’ primary professional experience has been in K-12 education.  She taught school from 1973 to 1986 in both the San Jose Unified and Portola Valley School Districts in California.  From 1985 to 1993, she was Director of the Partnerships in Education Program for the San Mateo County Office of Education.  She initiated and developed over 100 Adopt-A-School business/education partnerships in K-12 schools in 23 districts. She started and developed the Latina Mentor Program, linking Latina professional women with fifth and sixth grade girls.  She also arranged for business executives to job shadow school principals through the California statewide “Principal for a Day” project. In addition, Niederhaus has been involved in a number of educational partnership conferences.  She was the keynote speaker for such a conference in Canada.  She also presented information about the development, maintenance, and evaluation of partnerships at numerous national and statewide conferences.  She co-chaired both the San Mateo County Institute on Preparing Students for the Work Force 2000, as well as the California Educational Partnership Consortium Committee on Educational Reform.

Niederhaus has also published several articles in educational journals, including Thrust for Educational Leadership, NAPE Partners in Education Journal, San Francisco State University School of Education REVIEW, Partnerships in Educ0tion Journal, Partnership Progress, and San Mateo County Partnerships Update.  She has generated over 200 newspaper and/or school/company newsletter articles covering partnership events and activities.  She was inducted into San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993. Niederhaus’ recent community experience includes acting as a workshop presenter at the 2002 Housing Leadership Day held at Oracle Corporation in Redwood City, California.  Her article entitled “The Accessory Unit:  A Viable Option for Affordable Housing” was published in the May 2002 edition of The Housing Agenda.  In 2004 she spoke to the League of Women Voters on “Accessory Units: Solutions for Life Cycle Housing Needs” in Redwood City, CA.