ABOUT AVENTINE ASSOCIATES

OUR NAME

Aventine - one of the fabled Seven Hills of Rome: During the time of the Roman Republic, when the Plebs and Patricians fought for power, it was the Aventine hill where the Plebs "went on strike" to obtain their rights. Notable for beautiful temples, the Aventine has always been known for its intellectuals and artists, as well as its poor citizens just trying to make a living. Then, as now, the Aventine represented diversity, struggle, opportunity, and hope.

OUR TEAM

David Lange

Founder and Managing Partner, Americas - Pennington, NJ, USA

David brings over 15 years' experience as a global leadership strategist, facilitator and advisor to his role as Managing Partner of Aventine Associates.  His primary areas of focus are talent management, organizational transformation and cultural change, global diversity and inclusion strategy and advisory, and global leadership development.

He has served clients in every part of the world, including American Express, Microsoft, Nestlé, Novartis, Gap Inc., Campbell Soup Co., BNP Paribas, Procter & Gamble, Corning, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, Honeywell, Air Products, Deutsche Telekom, Sara Lee, Boston Consulting Group, Bunge, and MetLife, among others.

Prior to founding Aventine Associates in 2008, David worked as an Associate for McKinsey and Company (Budapest, Hungary), a Principal at Egon Zehnder International (Budapest, Hungary; Washington, DC; Atlanta, GA), and an Executive Director at Russell Reynolds Associates (Atlanta, GA).  He also has direct organizational leadership experience, serving as President of TMC (Princeton, NJ) where he was closely involved in the sale of the company to Berlitz, Inc. in April 2008.

David has a degree in International Relations from the University of Virginia and an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. He is fluent in Hungarian, French and German in addition to his native English.

Pierre de Groot

Managing Partner, EMEA - Antwerp, Belgium

After a management career in three top global pharmaceutical companies, a spell in an advertising agency and an ongoing involvement with various business schools, in 1999 Pierre made the transition to organizational and management development.

In this new function he held responsibility as Director of Management Centre Europe, Managing director for Training Management Corporation’s (TMC) EMEA office and as a consultant providing services to Management Centre Europe, Middle East Management Centre, Training Management Corporation, Boston University, Duke Corporate Education and Berlitz Cultural Consulting.

Pierre’s passion is leadership and management effectiveness with a specific emphasis on Global Leadership i.e. cross cultural (global) competence; He is certified in the Meyers Briggs Type Indicator, Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument, Cultural Orientations Indicator, CultureActive and York Associates DPI process. He trains and supports managers in the US, across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and among his clients are Novartis, BP, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Nestle, Air Products, Dell, Scientific Atlanta, Merck Serono, Dell, Dow Chemical, Novo Nordisk, Sodexo, Danone, American Express, Pfizer, Office Depot, MasterCard, Honeywell, et al.

Pierre has a well-developed understanding of cultural diversity and has successfully lived through the complexities of international relocation, integrating and managing across borders and cultures. He holds dual Belgian and South African citizenship and studied for a Bachelor in Economic Science and a Master in Business Administration.

Bob Steiner

Managing Partner, Asia Pacific - Bangalore, India

Bob has been both a management practitioner and trainer of managers from around the world for the past 2+ decades. Having lived and worked on four continents, Bob has developed extensive experience and great passion for helping managers excel with the cultural diversity found in their organizations.

Bob has a breadth of organizational facilitation and consulting experience, having worked with managers from such companies as 20th Century Fox, American Express, BMW, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Campbell Soup, Chevron, Citibank, Dow Corning, EBAY / PayPal, Ernst & Young, Honeywell, HSBC, ITT, Johnson & Johnson, MetLife, Novartis, PepsiCo Int'l, Procter & Gamble, Samsung and Sybase in both English and Spanish.

Bob has lectured at UC Berkeley's International Extension Programs since 2001, and has conducted research and published his writings in the areas of cultural characteristics and competency in multicultural teams. Earlier in his career, Bob held multiple leadership positions in marketing and sales for one of AT&T's multilingual services groups, and was also Vice President of a bio-technology business consulting firm. More recently, he was responsible for the West Coast and Latin American operations for Training Management Corporation.

Bob has worked with numerous cross-cultural teams, and speaks Spanish, German, French, as well as basic Italian and Kannada. He received his BA in economics and political science, and has an MBA in International Management.

Chris Pether

Associate, EMEA - Paris, France

Chris Pether brings over 18 years of Human Capital Management (HCM) and General Management experience.  During that time she has worked as a corporate HR professional in telecommunications, professional services and in B2B online business sectors across Europe and the Americas. Ms. Pether’s last corporate position was Managing Director for Caliper Europe – an international HR Consulting Company.

Chris’ experience at senior management level in privately held family businesses, legal partnerships, start-ups and global corporations, operating in several very diverse industry sectors, combined with her expertise in diagnostic tools, management training & action learning techniques, gives her the ability to provide coaching, facilitation and training for senior managers and help them find viable solutions for their business issues.  She has served clients all over the world including Novartis, Abbott, Roche, Eurocopter, EADS, GMAC, BIC, C&A and Thales.

Chris holds professional qualifications in Public International Law, German and Russian. Ms. Pether is licensed to deliver several ability and psychometric instruments. Ms. Pether is fluent in French, German and English. She also understands Dutch.

Marcel Bucsescu

Associate, Americas - New York, NY

Marcel brings five years of global diversity and inclusion management support to the Aventine team, having worked closely with many of the worlds most recognized organizations for corporate diversity. Marcel also plays a key role at The Conference Board in developing reserach initiatives and other offerings to The Conference Board's 2000 plus corporate members, such as Creating a Competency Model for Diversity & Inclusion Practitioners.

Marcel has an undergraduate degree in political science and philosophy and an MA in European Studies from the Universiteit van Amsterdam.