Jeffrey Shuman

Jeff Shuman is an educator and trusted advisor to executives who are building, leading and managing alliances and collaborative networks of partners. His mix of operational, consulting, research and classroom experiences allow him to blend the theoretical with the practical, providing useful, easily implementable and repeatable advice. At The Rhythm of Business he partners with global companies to advance their alliance and collaboration management capability. His experiences include extensive work with global organizations and government agencies in oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, international economic development, logistics, research, consumer goods, and information technology. Consulting engagements include designing and implementing an alliance management capability, measuring the operating effectiveness of individual alliances, designing governance frameworks and operating principles, evaluating the alliance portfolio, intervening in troubled situations, guiding the launch of new alliances, and working with good collaborations to become great collaborations. He partners with management to build learning programs designed to help people work effectively in alliances and collaborative networks. Shuman’s courses, Managing Collaborative Relationships and Entrepreneurial Thinking are part of the Bentley University MBA curriculum. Believing that one can’t teach without experience, he’s founded or been part of the founding team of five companies across multiple industries – including a computer company that was the first to build an alliance with Microsoft to distribute Windows 3.0 through an OEM environment. All of his companies have had partnering as a core strategy and organizing principle of the business. A member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) since 2002, Shuman is among the first to receive the designation of Certified Strategic Alliance Professional (CSAP) awarded by ASAP. He is currently a member of the Association’s Professional Development Committee. He is also actively involved on the teams that have developed the Certificate of Achievement – Alliance Management (CA-AM) certification and the CSAP certification. Shuman has co-authored numerous books, articles, and white papers and regularly speaks at a variety of venues around the world on the ongoing transformation of traditional organization structures to dynamic collaborative networks.