Robert Hess, BS, MA, MBA

Project Assignment:  Mr. Hess is responsible for the development of business strategy , customer development and liaison.

Experience: Robert Hess is a co-founder of The Strategics Group, Inc., a management consulting firm partnering with clients to reduce business risk and improve performance.

Mr. Hess  has broad and extensive US and international management experience.  His post-military career includes positions as Vice President of Business Development for Aerospatiale, France’s leading aerospace firm - most know for its leadership of Airbus Industries, Director of Strategic Planning and Partner Relations at the Center for Digital Innovation at UCLA, and the management of his own consulting firm prior to founding the Strategics Group.

While at Aerospatiale, he developed Aerospatiale’s Washington, DC government relations strategy and worked with project teams from the parent company in France to develop strategic partnership strategies for working with US defense companies.  He served as the interim Vice President of Sales for one of Aerospatiale’s US subsidiaries during a period of management transition.

His military career included the command of ground and aviation units in the US Army, and senior level staff positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and US Department of State, where he managed a $50 million program of military assistance projects in Africa.  He served as the project manager of an 18-month international joint effort that rebuilt a critical regional air transportation hub – the airfield at Dirkou, Niger, in the sub-Saharan Africa desert.

As the Director of Partner Relations at UCLA’s Center for Digital Innovation, he evaluated the current status of the organization and its mission and developed a strategic roadmap for expanding the scope of the Center to match its future vision. He left the Center to found his own consulting firm.

Mr. Hess  holds an MBA from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, a Masters Degree in Area Studies from the School of International Service, The American University in Washington, DC, and a BA in history from the Virginia Military Institute. 

He also is a graduate of the Board of Directors Institute, Price Center for Entrepreneurship at UCLA, the Landaegger Institute for International Management at Georgetown University and numerous military schools, including the US Army Command and General Staff College.  He has served as an outside Director of a privately held aviation services company.

Robert speaks French and German, has published several articles on international defense issues, and wrote the management manual used by the US Departments of State and Defense to manage the $50 million Africa Civic Action Program.

Education:  Virginia Military Institute, American University, UCLA

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