SPEAKER: MARVIN ZONIS

Marvin Zonis has a global reputation as a speaker on Globalisation and E-commerce. He is Professor at the University of Chicago, where he teaches Leadership and Business Strategy in the Era of E-Commerce.

The conventional wisdom dictates that the most decisive forces for business in the coming decade will be globalisation, deregulation, and E-Commerce. Marvin's expertise lies in articulating the relationships between these forces and predicting the ways they will impact the business world. As E-Commerce continues to drive

globalisation, the uncertainties of global deregulation and fierce competition have forged a new climate for business practice. Marvin maintains that business leadership is more essential than ever to any organisation's survival. Since Marvin created the first course on E-Commerce at the University of Chicago in 1999, he has been at the forefront of definitive thinking about E-Commerce, its role in the globalisation of business and the leadership necessary to drive companies forward. Beyond the University of Chicago, business leaders turn to Marvin as a mentor for leadership in the new economy. In addition to educating executives, he has worked with a number of firms to help them devise and implement E-Commerce strategies.

Recent talks include KPMG Partners Development Seminar in Geneva, Arthur Andersen Partners Seminar in Berlin, AXA Financial Services in Bordeaux, A T Kearney Global Business Council in New York and Andersen Consulting International Human Resources Conference in Arizona.

Marvin has many other business interests including being Chairman of CNA Financial Corporation, Director of Russian-American Life Insurance and Director of Distributed Software Development, Inc.

He has lectured and written on E-Commerce, leadership and globalisation. He has also published articles on emerging markets, Middle Eastern politics, the oil industry, Russia, and U.S. foreign policy and his books include The Eastern European Opportunity. He has consulted with governments in Eastern Europe on the establishment of non-communist political systems and the transition to market economies.

Marvin has appeared on numerous network television news programmes, including Nightline, and CNN's Larry King Live, and is interviewed regularly on National Public Radio. He has been Middle East Consultant to ABC/Capital Cities television and International Editor of WBBM-TV, Chicago.

He was educated at Yale University, the Harvard Business School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a Ph.D. in Political Science, and the Institute for Psychoanalysis, Chicago, where he received psychoanalytic training.