Charles Newman

Charles Newman has more than 40 years of industry experience -- 28 years as part of the Ford Motor Company management team, and more recently, as founder of a strategic planning and merger/acquisition consulting company.

During the past 12 years, Charlie provided services for a broad variety of manufacturing and service companies including Binks Manufacturing Company, Cambridge Industries, Conix Corporation (North America & Europe), Cuyahoga Steel & Wire, Decoma International, Inc., Ford Motor Company, Freedland Industries, Magna International, Inc., the O J Group, Plymouth Steel Corporation, Renaissance Global Logistics and Siemens A.G.

He developed strategic and business planning processes which were successfully implemented at many automotive supplier operations in North America and Europe. In addition, on behalf of his clients, Charlie successfully completed several joint venture agreements in North America, a licensing agreement in Japan and the divestiture of a minority owned business.

During his last 10 years at Ford Motor Company, he was the Worldwide Business Development Manager for the $3 billion Plastic Products Division. During this same period, he also advised other Ford component manufacturing divisions in the development, evaluation and negotiation of business alliances worldwide. Key accomplishments during this time frame included implementation of a team oriented approach to strategic and business planning, and the successful negotiation of 46 licensing agreements in 12 countries, 9 joint ventures in 4 countries and 6 acquisitions and 2 divestitures.

Charlie's business experience includes purchasing, finance, product planning and export planning, as well as strategic and business planning. He has an MBA and a BSBA from Babson College.

Charlie recently published a book entitled, “Beyond the Chicken Dance” based on his real life experiences. This book is about alliances: how to forge them, how to structure them, how to negotiate them and how to manage them. On another level the book is about life itself. The novice manager will learn many things from it; the veteran manager will learn how it all fits together.