Mr. John A. Caslione is the founder and President & CEO of GCS Business Capital LLC (GCS), with offices in Chicago, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Frankfurt and Milan. Founded in 2005, GCS is a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisor to US, European, Chinese and other Asian middle market companies seeking to globalize their businesses through mergers, acquisitions and strategic equity joint ventures.

   Prior to his founding of GCS, Mr. Caslione founded (1991) and served as President and CEO of Andrew-Ward International, Inc., an international management consulting firm assisting U.S. and Europe firms to develop global account programs, and global marketing, sales and distribution channel strategies. Mr. Caslione has personally executed business development strategies in 87 countries on six continents including the U.S., Europe, China, India, Russia and CIS, Central Asia, the Middle East, Australia, Southeast Asia, South America and Africa for many companies, including ABB, Becton-Dickenson Biosciences, Caltex Lubricants, ExxonMobil Chemical Films, GE, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Philips N.V., RJ Reynolds Nabisco, Sandoz, and many more large and middle market firms.

   Mr. Caslione and noted marketing guru and thought leader, Philip Kotler, have recently co-authored their new book, Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in The Age of Turbulence (AMACOM Publishing), which was just released. As the world has now entered into a new age of increasingly frequent and intense periods of turbulence in the global economy there is a need for businesses to develop a new mindset, one that takes into account intermittent periods of disturbance, and still thrive while under threat of global, industry, market or company chaos. Chaotics presents a new system and set of strategic guidelines designed to help businesses navigate through the waves of uncertainty and chaos affecting customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

   Mr. Caslione has serves as director and/or advisor for companies in the U.S., Europe and China, to assist companies of all sizes (including a special focus on medium market enterprises) to globalize their business, with a special focus on U.S., European, Chinese and other Asian firms.

   Mr. Caslione is highly sought after as an expert on the new global economy and global business development and speaks in many globally influential business forums. Mr. Caslione has frequently appeared as a guest expert for CNBC Europe on its “Squawk Box” and “Morning Exchange” programs where he speaks on critical issues in developing global business, including in key emerging markets such in Asia.

   Mr. Caslione is a frequent keynote speaker and chairman of conferences, where he speaks on the new global economy and global business development in many forums including; the China Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference, the Dubai Global Strategy Conference, and many events in the U.S,. Europe, Middle East and Asia.

   Mr. Caslione is a guest lecturer at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, where he speaks to business executive in Kellogg’s Global Initiatives in Management Program (GIM) on global marketing and business development, including in China, India and other markets in Asia. Mr. Caslione is also guest lecturer for executive management events at venues including the Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) Program for Executive Development (Lausanne, Switzerland), IAE in Aix-en-Provence (France) and many others.

   Mr. Caslione previously authored Growing Your Business in Emerging Markets: Promise and Perils, and is considered to be a leading authoritative book on the globalization of business with a special focus on developing sales and distribution strategies in emerging markets. His book, Global Manifest Destiny: Growing Your Business in a Borderless Economy, is a practical how-to book for small and medium size firms with the desire to become true global companies and provides critical insights and a competencies roadmap for middle market companies to successfully compete in the global business environment.

   Mr. Caslione also has two books top-rated books published in China, Going Global – How to Globalize Your Business and Developing Successful Global Sales and Distribution Channel Strategies. These two practical how-to books focus upon critical issues for China’s emerging global businesses seeking to develop successful business growth strategies to globalize their businesses.

   Mr. Caslione has earned his Bachelors of Science and MBA from the University of New York (Buffalo, USA) and his J.D. (Juris Doctor) from Chicago-Kent College of Law (Chicago, USA).

Current Topic:

1) Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in The Age of Turbulence

   When the US financial meltdown hit in 2008, everyone was asking the same questions: “how deep will it be? How long will it last?”. The markets were in freefall and many governments around the world appeared to be sticking their heads in the sand hoping that the oncoming storm would just “blow over.”

   Truth is, our political and business leaders were staring the mother of all financial storms in the face minus a raincoat and some goggles. World economies toppled like a pack of cards. We watched on in horror and disbelief as seven trillion dollars of market value in the real economy simply evaporated. “How on earth did this happen?” we asked.

  For as long as most of us can remember, world economies have been characterised by two predictable phases: six or seven years of prosperity and around a year or so of ‘market correction.’ Our leaders have been playing by a rulebook that is moth eaten and long out-of-date. Consequently, we’ve all been sleepwalking into a “New Age of Turbulence” for the last five years.

   New technologies, customer empowerment, hyper-competition, the rise of emerging superpowers like Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) and the environment have all simultaneously converged. Add all this to the new level of interlocking fragility created by technology and globalization and a new, un-chartered economic landscape reveals itself.

   At the G20 summit, British prime minister, Gordon Brown quite rightly observed the need for “an early warning system” to deal with the “New World Order.” In a nutshell, this is what Chaotics is all about. The Chaotics Management System and Chaotics Marketing System have been created to provide world leaders with the tools they need to create robust, resilient economies and business enterprises. If you want to manage risk and uncertainty and exploit turbulence for the opportunity it really is, then Chaotics is for you.

   Turbulence, risk and uncertainty are now the more normal condition of industries, markets and companies — the new normality, punctuated by periodic and intermittent spurts of prosperity and downturn. And turbulence’s chaos has two major effects. One is Vulnerability, and it is against this that companies need defensive armor. The other is Opportunity, which needs to be exploited.

   Bad times are bad for many and good for some. Opportunity occurs when a strong company can take away a weaker competitor’s business or even to acquire a weakened competitor at a bargain price. Opportunity is also present when your company doesn’t cut critical costs — but your competitors do.

   To counter the effects of turbulence and chaos in 2009, companies need a Chaotics management system — a system of new strategic behaviors — for dealing with the uncertainty that comes from turbulence’s chaos. Dealing effectively with uncertainty now becomes an inescapable imperative in 2009.

   Caslione speaks on Chaotics and helps business leaders better understand how to maneuver through turbulence, avoid chaos and exploit both to their advantage in this new age in which we’ve now entered — The Age of Turbulence.

Additional Topics:

1.    Global Supplier Alliances

2.    Breaking Into Emerging Markets

3.    Competing Against Price

4.    How to Develop a Successful Global Business

5.    Charming the Dragon (Globalizing Your Business with China)