Dr. Robert Handfield & Jack Simony

Teaches at The Negotiation Institute

Dr. Robert Handfield is a globally renowned thought leader in supply chain management and The Negotiation Institute Distinguished Expert in Negotiation for Procurement, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Market Intelligence, and Supplier Development. He has trained and consulted with many Fortune 500 companies including Nike, Chevron, Federal Express, Whole Foods Market, and GlaxoSmithKline. He is the Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University Poole College of Management, the director of the NC State Supply Chain Research Cooperative, an adjunct professor with the Supply Chain Management Research Group at the Manchester Business School, and the consulting editor of the Journal of Operations Management, one of the leading supply chain management journals in the field. Dr. Handfield’s authoring credits are extensive, the most recent being Biopharmaceutical Supply Chains, Supply Market Intelligence, and Supply Chain Redesign, along with the textbooks Supply Chain Management 5th Edition (with Robert Monczka) and Introduction to Operations and Supply Chain Management 2nd Edition (with Cecil Bozarth). In 2009, he was nominated as an Honorary Fellow of Contract & Commercial Management (FCCM) by the International Association of Commercial and Contract Management, an honor bestowed upon individuals who have made exceptional contributions in the field of contracting and commercial management. Jack Simony is Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of The Negotiation Institute, bringing with him decades of experience negotiating complex transactions in a variety of business sectors throughout the world. In addition to the Board of TNI, Mr. Simony is a portfolio manager and Co-Head of Litigation Finance and Credit at Platinum Partners, a hedge fund that originates loans in markets underserved by traditional sources of financing, including litigation, consumer finance, secure trade finance and real estate. At Platinum, Mr. Simony arranges complex credit facilities, finances equity investments and acquisitions, and structures multi-party corporate transactions. Prior to Platinum, he was the co-founder and CEO of Whitehaven Group, a pioneering company in the field of litigation financing, which he ran until 2008. Whitehaven invested in over 10,000 legal claims, and Mr. Simony was responsible for its litigation funding goals and its operations, new business development, acquisitions, and communications. He successfully directed Whitehaven to a nationwide enterprise. Earlier, Mr. Simony was a partner in Knightsbridge Equities, a trading/clearing firm that provided capital and technology to professional traders, hedge funds and family offices, which he successfully sold in 1999. Mr. Simony headed Knightsbridge’s proprietary trading desk and served on its committees for strategic planning and execution, capital market management, and risk management. Mr. Simony is a frequent speaker at finance, litigation, and academic forums around the world, and is involved in a number of non-profit organizations, including Human Rights Advocates International, a United Nations NGO, where he served a three-year term as the group’s representative to the UN. As a CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner), he is a certified expert in the field of fraud prevention. Mr. Simony serves as a Trustee for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is a member of The Army and Navy Club in Washington D.C. and active supporter of a number of philanthropic organizations. Mr. Simony earned a Masters in Financial Strategy from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, and a Masters in Business Administration from HEC Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris.