Robert Azar is a US-Asia business and cultural expert with thirty-eight years of executive level success. As a strategy advisor, he specializes in achieving excellence in global business development, intercultural management and problem resolution.
R. Azar previously lived in the Far East for seven years; worked in Japanese corporations for ten years; and developed and managed U.S. businesses in Asian markets for twenty-five years. He has logged a million flight miles traveling to, from and within Asia. He is fluent in the Japanese language – including reading, writing, and speaking – and familiar with Korean.
Mr. Azar attended the White House’s welcome ceremony for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for U.S.-Japan trade discussions (April 28, 2015). He was one of four hundred leaders in U.S.-Asian affairs to attend President Clinton’s major policy speech before his summit meeting with then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Washington, D.C. (October 24, 1997).
Prior to commencing his thirty-eight year career in international business and intercultural management, R. Azar completed a decade of formal academic training and field research in Asian culture. He earned a double major BA degree in International Relations and East Asian Studies from New York University; completed an MA degree in East Asian political, economic and cultural affairs at Columbia University; and studied international marketing, global management and business law at Harvard University. He is the published author of two books and numerous articles and reports on US-Asian business, economics, foreign policy and culture – published both in America and Japan, in English and in Japanese – and has extensive experience teaching U.S.-Asian business and culture.
In 2002 Mr. Azar was honored to have earned the Certified Management Consultant (CMC) designation, the management consulting industry’s highest recognition for demonstrated achievements and excellence in client satisfaction, professional standards and ethical business practices. To date, the CMC designation has been awarded to fewer than 1,000 consultants in the U.S. and 20,000 consultants worldwide.
As an expert on Asia, R. Azar has been frequently interviewed by major international media for more than thirty years. He has been a guest on CNN, CNBC, the Financial News Network (FNN), the Wall Street Journal Report, as well as on local cable television and radio shows in the United States. In Japan he has appeared – speaking in Japanese – on Television Tokyo’s “World Business Satellite” (Japan’s foremost business and financial news program), NHK, Nippon Television, Fuji Television, and numerous radio shows. He has also been featured in several interviews in leading American and Asian news publications, including The New York Times, Business Week, Crain’s BtoB, and Kenko Sangyo Shimbun (Health Industry News).
His thirty-five year international career spans several fields of global business, including strategic planning, negotiating, management, intercultural mediation, global business development, international sales and marketing, finance, market research, international trade, product development, human resources, trouble shooting, turn around services, and political and economic analysis – in both the for-profit and the non-profit sectors.
He has served as a member of the board of directors for numerous organizations, including the North Carolina Japan Center, United Arts Council, the World Trade Council, Institute of Management Consultants, American Cancer Society and the Japanese Center for Quality of Life Studies.