Dr. Peter Pekar Jr., passed away in November 2003 after a long battle with cancer. Peter was an early apostle of alliances, rigorously analyzing alliance trends worldwide and quantifying the clear benefits of alliances in terms of enhanced growth and profitability. He published scores of articles and viewpoints on the subject, and five years after its publication, his book “Smart Alliances: A Practical Guide to Repeatable Success” (which he co-wrote with John Harbison) is still the top-selling alliance book on Amazon. His most recent role was as a co-founder of Smart Alliance Partners, and before that he worked on building an alliance transactions business within investment banking firm Houlihan Lokey. From 1992-2001 he was senior advisor and major contributor to Booz•Allen and Hamilton’s strategic alliance consulting practice. His understanding of alliances began with a series of operating roles in the 1970s and 1980s, and he spread the gospel of alliances as a professor at London Business School, California Polytechnic, Henley Graduate Management College, Peter Drucker Graduate School of Management and the University of Victoria Graduate School of Management. A frequent speaker at conferences such as ASAP and the Conference Board, Peter always brought fresh perspective and a lively and engaging presentation style. His passion for alliances was contagious. As alliance professionals, we all owe him a debt of gratitude for helping to elevate the stature of strategic alliances in the corporate consciousness. He will be sorely missed. ********************************************************************************* Before co-founding Smart Alliance Partners, Dr. Pekar served as National Director of Corporate Alliances at Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin. Prior to that, Dr. Pekar was a Senior Advisor to the management consulting firm of Booz·Allen & Hamilton Inc. in the area of strategic alliances. His exposure with the alliance phenomenon comes not only from an academic and consultant perspective, but also from hands-on experience. He has been the operating manager of many alliances and responsible for their success His work at Booz·Allen covered numerous world class client assignments and research in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Along with his duties at Booz·Allen, Dr. Pekar was a visiting professor at the London Business School where he taught an MBA course on strategic alliances and holds alliance seminars for senior executives. Dr. Pekar has been a guest speaker for such organizations and groups as Business Week's President's Forum; Conference Board in the US and Europe; National Association of Corporate Directors; Association for Corporate Growth; The Economist; the Los Angeles and Chicago Bars; Practicing Law Institute; Arthur Andersen's annual awards gathering; Booz·Allen's Senior Advisory Board which Dr. Henry Kissinger chairs; and Universities such as Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, Columbia, UCLA, etc. He has published over 50 articles. While at Booz·Allen, Dr. Pekar co-authored with John Harbison five cutting edge Viewpoints (available on this website) on strategic alliances which have been distributed by Booz·Allen to over 20,000 senior global executives, mailed to over 5,500 corporate directors by the National Association of Corporate Directors and sent to over 3,000 major subscribers of the Alliance Analyst, the most prominent magazine on alliances. John Harbison and Dr. Pekar also co-authored a book on strategic alliances titled Smart Alliances: Practical Secrets to Repeatable Success. His business career spans three decades. Before Booz·Allen, he was President of BT-U.S.A. Inc., a $600 million American holding company for a global Dutch conglomerate. Previous to BT-USA, he was head of alliances and venture capital for Dun & Bradstreet. He also has held senior management positions in Fortune 500 firms as Esmark, and The Quaker Oats Company. He holds a Masters of Arts in Mathematics from the University of Illinois (Urbana) and a Ph.D. in Business and Economics from Illinois Institute of Technology's Stuart School of Business (Chicago). Dr. Pekar consults and holds seminars and training sessions for many corporations. |
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