Ben Gomes-Casseres
Co-Director 

Ben Gomes-Casseres is Professor of International Business and Director of the MBA Program at Brandeis International Business School, where he works on global strategy with a focus on business combinations. He has researched this topic for 20 years, taught it to MBAs and executives, and consulted with major companies in the United States and abroad. He is best known for his work on alliance strategy, but has also written and consulted on international management, competitive strategy, technology policy, mergers and acquisitions, and organizational development.

Gomes-Casseres has written or edited four books in these fields; his latest bookMastering Alliance Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide to Design, Management, and Organization(with Bamford and Robinson; Jossey-Bass, 2003) gives practical advice on how to use alliances in business strategy. His articles have appeared inHarvard Business Review, Financial Times, Strategy & Business, Sloan Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Financial Economics, and elsewhere. His work has been cited widely, including in The New York Times,TheWall Street Journal, and Forbes. He wrote cases at Harvard Business School on international strategy and is currently working on a book on the strategic use of external resources.

Gomes-Casseres has consulted, taught, and spoken worldwide on international business, alliance strategy, and related topics. Before coming to Brandeis, Gomes-Casseres was a professor at Harvard Business School (1985-1995), where he taught courses in international business. Before that, he was an economist at the World Bank Group, working on projects in Latin America.

Charles Reed, Jr.
Co-Director

Chuck Reed, Jr. is Co-Director of the Asper Center for Global Entrepreneurship and Senior Lecturer in the Practice of Entrepreneurship at the International Business School of Brandeis University.  He teaches undergraduates and graduates in the process of business startups and the development of focused business plans. 

Before coming to Brandeis International Business School, Reed was a company CEO or top line manager for more than twenty years.  Most recently he was the founder and President of Integra Technologies Corporation, a supplier of accessory equipment to mainframe computer sites.  This business was sold to a Fortune 500 company at the beginning of 1997. 

Prior to forming Integra Technologies, Reed was CEO of Kybe Corporation, a company that he bought from Dennison Manufacturing in an LBO in 1985.  He had worked for Dennison as CEO of  Dennison Computer Supplies.  Before that Reed was President of a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson and held a number of senior management positions at Corning, Inc. 

Reed has managed companies, divisions of Fortune 500 companies and departments that successfully marketed both consumer and technical products.  These have ranged from sophisticated biomedical instruments costing over $150,000 each to floppy disks priced under $1.00.  He has been the lead negotiator in seven company purchases or divestitures, including forming the first (1975) joint-venture in post-WWII Hungary involving an American company. 

Reed was a founding board member of the Massachusetts Product Development Corporation, a Massachusetts quasi-public investment company.  Reed also serves on the board of the Epilepsy Foundation of Massachusetts.  This is the only organization in the state devoted to improving the welfare of people with seizure disorders. In addition, he is a board member of three private companies. 

Reed is an avid downhill skier and ocean sailor. He holds an AB in Economics and an MBA from Harvard University, where he was a National Merit scholar. He was also a three-year letterman in football and a starter on Harvard's first Ivy League championship football team.  He received the Corning Foundation Traveling Fellowship upon graduation.