dr. robert crane
senior advisor, international development and cross-cultural affairs
robert@just-consulting.com
Having worked in the field of management education for over twenty-five years, Dr. Robert Crane has built a solid reputation for competence in the areas of international development, cross-cultural business applications and institutional entrepreneurship in eastern and western Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Throughout his career he has been involved with such management institutions as the J. L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University near Chicago, EM-Lyon in France and the International Management Center (now the Business School of the Central European University) in Budapest. He has developed and/or run customized programs for executives for such firms as Baker & McKensie (one of the world's largest law firms), McKinsey and Company, Société Générale, Bouygues Construction, and many others.
Thanks to his wide travels and long-term residence in both Europe and North America, Dr. Crane possesses a privileged viewpoint on cultural issues. This perspective has allowed him to create customized cross-cultural business programs for multinational firms such as Royal Ten Cate (NL) and publish a series of books on cross-cultural business with publishing houses in the United Kingdom and the United States. He teaches the imams of France cross cultural understanding in a program organized by the Catholic University of Paris and funded by the French Ministry of Immigration. He also organizes cross cultural interfaith workshops for clergy and laymen.
His breadth of vision has further led him to create consortia both of universities offering joint degrees and of researchers working on collective publications. His long experience in advising companies has allowed him to facilitate idea sharing among firms as well as internal brainstorming for single companies. Finally, he has had the entrepreneurial vision to develop or enhance the global dimension of institutions (IMC, IGS) and companies (Baker & McKensie, Royal Ten Cate). As an entrepreneur, he created the first global executive education program in 1992; the first globally televised MBA program (through the National Technological University); and The Peace School, the first primary school to teach peace making to small children through a knowledge of cultures and religions.
Dr. Crane holds degrees in French literature (B.A., M.A., Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and translation (maîtrise or M.A. from the University of Lyon, France). He also studied management (Young Managers' Programme or Executive MBA at Cranfield University in the U.K.).