Peter von Braun

Peter von Braun has spent most of his professional career developing and implementing strategic plans for organizations which wanted to win. Early on, he realized that many planning processes wasted time collecting and analyzing data that ultimately was not useful. He created a process whereby the single focus of his planning model is on the markets where an organization can win and what it will take to be successful.

As a result, his system is fast and very effective, having been implemented in hundreds of real life situations. throughout the world. His assignments range from companies with sales of a few million to billions of dollars. and include virtually everything from family owned companies to major public institutions. The industries cover the spectrum, with extensive experience in communications, financial institutions, manufacturing, service industries, agriculture, health care and many others.

These assignments include work for clients in North America, Latin America, Europe, Russia, Africa and Asia.

One large-scale project was for a renowned pharmaceutical company to review and evaluate the opportunities in 60 of its business lines located in 12 countries. To simplify their complex planning process, the client had aggregated all of their international businesses into two buckets. Not surprisingly, this approach failed miserably. Our solution was to create a streamlined analytical process that solved the problem by quickly identifying the unique characteristics of what it took to win in each market and the magnitude of each opportunity and it’s relative priority. As one country general manager commented ”our businesses are reasonably simple. What is complex is that they are all different and there are so many of them”. The client slimmed down its business portfolio, and concentrated its efforts against those with the best prospects. Within 3 years, total sales and profits increased dramatically.

Following military service with both the U.S. Navy and Army, he graduated from Yale with High Honors in 3 years. He earned a Ph.D. summa cum laude from the University of Cologne, Germany in 2 years, where he was studying as a Fulbright Scholar. His thesis on strategy was chosen as one of the 6 books published annually by the German Government. Subsequently, he taught at Harvard Business School. He became a partner at McKinsey & Co. in New York, where he stayed for 11 years, leaving to start his own practice.

In addition to creating his own strategy consulting practice, he was Chairman and CEO of several private companies including the largest mineral micronutrient company in the U.S., and an enhanced oil recovery company with operations in the USSR, India and other countries.

He became deeply involved in economic development and public health campaigns. A major achievement stemmed from a project he created and led in the Sultanate of Oman where roughly 10% of the population was blind. The project focused on correction of remediable blindness as well as the research, curriculum, and system necessary conduct mass training in the prevention of blindness, for which he received a promotion in his order of knighthood from the Queen of England.

Another project on the coast of Labrador in Canada combined economic development and education. It involved rebuilding the coastal fishing industry and creating a primary health care education system.

He served for seven years on the Vestry of Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York. He was a member the Board of Directors of the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief as well as serving as the Episcopal Church Representative to Church World Services.

This is Peter’s fourth book. He published a book on the evolution of British Imperial defense strategy in India and Central Asia (Die Verteidigung Indiens), How to Save a Life, a book on primary health care, and How to Save an Eye, a book on preventive ophthalmology. These books appeared in English, German and Arabic. His articles have appeared in The Harvard Business Review, the Journal of Commerce, the New York Times, as well as other journals. He has testified twice before committees of the US Senate on national security issues and policy regarding the break-up of the Soviet Union.

He is married and has two young adult children.

Peter can be reached at (203) 249 – 3782 or by email at petervonbraun@verizon.net or vonbraun@plantowinstrategy.com His website is www.plantowinstrategy.com.