Our Thought Leaders

Dr. Suj Chandrasekhar is founder and a principal at Strategic Insights, a business strategy and consulting firm based out of Washington DC. Strategic Insights specializes in Market Research, Data Analytics, Strategic Planning, Training & Development, Marketing, Sales, and New Product Development strategies. Suj helps organizations design and implement transformational data driven initiatives in the areas of Supplier Diversity, Marketing and Sales, and New Production Development

She works with corporations to optimize investment in the areas of Growth strategies and Innovation by leveraging state of the art technology platforms. She is a frequent speaker at company and industry events. Her clients include a number of Fortune 500 companies across several industries.

Suj is co-author of the HBR classic “Ending the War between Sales and Marketing” with Philip Kotler and Neil Rackham. Her work and research with Phil Kotler and Rob Walcott on Marketing and Product Development have been featured in the Wall Street Journal and MIT Sloan Review. She is currently working on a global research project on value management in Supplier Diversity.

She is a contributing author to the book “India’s Global Powerhouses.” Suj came to the US on a Fellowship to obtain her Ph.D. in Organizations and Strategy from the University of Iowa. She worked with Prof. Jim Price(student of Robert Merton) and Prof. Frank Schmidt (the pioneer of Meta analysis). Suj is well trained in the Mertonian tradition in Sociology as well as in advanced analytical frameworks.

Prior to coming to the US, Suj obtained her B.A. in Sociology from Stella Maris College, Chennai and a Masters in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Suj started her career as a Research Analyst in the Media industry. She worked on Customer Engagement Research and Strategic Planning projects for major Media clients including The New York Times and Nielsen Corporation.

In 2000, Suj established Strategic Insights with a focus on research and analytics driven strategic planning, Growth Strategies, and New Product Development. The firm also provides Sales Training for clients in a variety of industries. Suj was one of the contributors to the development of the Challenger Sales training program.

Ralph Oliva is Emeritus Professor of Marketing in the Smeal College of Business and a Faculty Leader in the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) at Penn State. Ralph has stepped down as Executive Director of ISBM, after 20 years of working to build it into a leading global network of Business-to-Business (B2B) practitioners, academic researchers and thought leaders. The ISBM is supported by major business-market/industrial firms, and a supports a network of over 200 researchers in academia.

Building stronger B2B marketing process with ISBM Member firms is a key focus for Ralph, working with DuPont, Saint-Gobain, Westinghouse Nuclear, Kennametal, Timken, Arkema, Parker Hannifin, Swagelok, Kimberly-Clark Professional, Diversey, PPG, and others in the Fortune 500. Ralph is active in Executive Education, as well as the Smeal College MBA program, where he received 17 Teaching awards from his students from 2002 through to in 2020. He has numerous publications in practitioner-related media on a wide range of topics in Business Marketing. His focus areas are in brand strategy and Integrated Strategic Communications, with a special focus on Ingredient Branding.

Before joining Penn State, Ralph spent 23 years at Texas Instruments, where he served as V.P. of Market Communications and Design for TI worldwide. Ralph developed the “DLP™” ingredient branding program for TI, and worked on the design and launch of TI’s “Speak and Spell™”, and the TI-30 calculator. While at TI he authored 15 books including “Math on Keys” (Together with the University of Denver Math Lab) with a circulation of over 10 million.

Ralph holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Solid State Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a B.S. in Physics from Fordham University.

Liam Fahey is co-founder and partner in Leadership Forum, LLC and is the creator and leader of its Intelligence Leadership Forum. He serves as Professor of Management Practice at Babson College (School of Executive Education). Previously, he taught at Northwestern University’s J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and at Boston University. He holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh and M.B.S. and B. Comm. degrees from University College Dublin, Ireland.

His academic research, organization consulting, and executive teaching focus on the creation and use of “marketplace intelligence”: developing superior understanding of the competitive present and alternative futures to shape and inspire more informed and incisive decision making. He advises leaders, conducts workshops, consults to analysis specialists, and engages with work teams in all facets of generating and leveraging marketplace intelligence and insight.

He has written or edited eight books and over fifty articles or book chapters. His books include: The Insight Discipline: Crafting New Marketplace Understanding That Makes a Difference (2020), Learning from the Future: Competitive Foresight Scenarios(1998), Competitors: Outwitting, Outmaneuvering and Outperforming(1999), and The Portable MBA in Strategy (2nd ed, 2001). His research has appeared in such publications as Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Strategy, Long Range Planning, California Management Review, Journal of Management, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, American Journal of Small Business, Strategy and Leadership, and Harvard Business Review. He served as editor of Planning Review from January 1987 to June 1995. For ten years, he served as Co-chairperson of the Strategic Leadership Forum’s annual strategic management conference.

Dr. Fahey has consulted with and/or conducted executive education programs for manufacturing, service, and not for profit organizations including AT&T, Baxter, Bausch & Lomb, DaimlerChrysler, DuPont, Emerson Electric, General Electric, General Motors, Hartmarx, Honeywell, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Lucent, 3M, Marriott Hotels, Motorola, National Starch and Chemical, Nortel, Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, Schering Plough, Texas Instruments, The Saint Paul Companies, Unisys, USG Corporation, US West, and Whirlpool.

He has also made presentations in many executive education and development programs sponsored by industry and trade associations, consulting firms, universities, and management education institutions in the U.S., Asia, Australia, Africa, and Europe, including Ernst and Young, Information Data Search, Cranfield University (UK), Emory University, Pennsylvania State University, University College Dublin, University of Pittsburgh, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), University of Texas at Austin, Management Center Europe, and the Irish Management Institute.