| Recent Experience
President, Global Direct Investment Solutions
Bruce set up Global Direct Investment Solutions in
September 2001 as a global "concierge service" to introduce executives to
relevant professional advisors, information resources, and economic
development professionals for the planning of
capital investment projects anywhere.
He recognized the unmet need to create a more efficient
and effective online and personal referral marketplace to bring top corporate executives, professional
service providers, and economic development representatives around the world together to develop major
projects faster and better. He used the cyclical decline in investment activity as a
networking and research opportunity to prepare the business for support of the next wave of projects.
He invested over a decade of professional experience in this niche,
plus new research and relationship development work, before launching the business
and related websites among leading
professional service providers and economic development organizations in 2004.
Within 3 years, the websites set up for this referral work were attracting
50,000+ visitors per month - more than magazines which had been selling
countless ads in this niche for the last 20 - 40 years.
He designed and developed the
unique www.gdi-solutions.com
website and the internal knowledgebase behind delivery of these new
services, including research into search engine optimization to use new
search technologies such as Google for corporate site selection work.
This was later reinforced by the development of the www.OnTheShortList.com
and www.ShortListNews.com
websites as tools for selective business location research across many
sources when planning investment projects.
The
knowledge behind the business includes thousands of relevant contacts
worldwide, and it is designed to scale up rapidly as more organizations choose to participate.
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Contact Information:
Bruce Donnelly
President
Global Direct
Investment Solutions
P.O. Box 439
Fox River Grove,
IL 60021-0439
(in far NW Chicago
suburbs)
bruce@gdi-solutions.com
TEL 847-304-4655
FAX 847-304-5375
Cell :
847-951-2913
Related
websites:
www.ShortListNews.com - with
unique custom search tools such as Search: Americas as well as news and PR
about this market
www.gdi-solutions.com - a
reference website with links and directories which openly shares thousands
of useful resources worldwide for investment project planning
US sales
representative of:
fDi magazine -
Foreign Direct Investment - published by the Financial Times group
www.fdimagazine.com
www.fDiAtlas.com
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PricewaterhouseCoopers, Plant Location International (PLI)
Bruce was the Director of Business Development responsible for North American business
relationships and sales for the global business location
strategy and incentives consulting practice of
PricewaterhouseCoopers. Based in Chicago, he reported directly to
partners in Belgium for five years, and introduced them to many prominent
new clients. PLI and other PwC consulting services were subsequently
sold to IBM.
During his five years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bruce
developed and maintained working relationships with top executives at
hundreds of leading US corporations in many industries about their direct
investment project plans, and helped to arrange professional support of
their projects in countries worldwide by the Plant Location International
(PLI) consulting group. He also maintained professional working
relationships with hundreds of partners and managers for other relevant
services offered by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Such location consulting work for major projects typically
involved :
- location strategy and site selection for new,
expanded, or consolidated factories, offices, or logistics centers
- capital investments of tens of millions of dollars,
creating many new jobs per project in the chosen locations
- comparative analysis of business conditions in
multiple locations to support strategic choices by clients
- incentive and tax considerations,
political/economic environment, labor practices, costs, productivity, etc.
- analysis from a very high level (which country?)
down to specific choices (final site negotiations and project
implementation)
- confidential handling of sensitive project plans
(new market entry, plant closures, reorganizations, relocation,
post-merger consolidation, etc.)
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Regional Economic Development, Northern England
Before joining Price Waterhouse, Bruce supported the
European investment plans of many leading companies for five years as the
North American investment promotion representative of a leading British
regional development agency.
This promotional
work to help attract and retain manufacturing and other investment
projects by US companies also required coordination with the national
marketing work of the Invest in Britain Bureau and other British regional
development agencies.
This was a five county region with a 3 million population.
Cities in the region included Newcastle upon Tyne (Tyneside), Durham,
Sunderland, Middlesbrough (Teesside), Carlisle and others. The
counties were Cumbria, Durham, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, and Cleveland.
The region had attracted a large base of US, Japanese, and European
manufacturers over the years, but also faced high unemployment because of
the transition from traditional heavy industries such as steel,
shipbuilding, coal mining, and railroads.
The region is located between North Yorkshire and Scotland in
the Northeast, and included the Lake District on the Northwest side, north
of Manchester. |
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Examples of professional support of major projects
Even after projects have been publicly announced, it may not
be possible to disclose the scope of services provided to support their
plans, as non-disclosure agreements or other professional constraints may
still apply.
The following is therefore just an illustrative list to show
the wide variety of companies which have been supported to various degrees
over the years through hundreds of personal meetings about their major
project plans.
- Amgen
- Anheuser Busch
- Baxter
- Boston Scientific
- Eaton
- H.J. Heinz
- IBM
- Merck
- Meritor
- NuSkin International
- Owens-Illinois
- Parker Hannifin
- Tenneco Automotive
- TRW
- Xircom
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U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer
Bruce's international background of more than 20 years
literally includes many "war stories" from diverse personal
experiences through work and travel in many countries.
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Served as a US Foreign Service Officer (Vice
Consul - diplomatic service) in the US Department of State, Pakistan, and
Germany during President Reagan's first term in office. Performed the work of multiple
positions normally assigned only to higher ranking officers.
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Certificate of Appreciation from Secretary of
State Alexander Haig for voluntary service on the Iran Working Group
(assisting the senior officers in Washington DC dealing with the hostage situation at the
US Embassy in Tehran) in the Operations Center of the Department of State,
1980-81
Note that it was hard to get volunteers to work
in Pakistan under martial law in this "high threat" post soon after the US Embassy had been burned
down by a mob in Islamabad. The recent Soviet invasion of
neighboring Afghanistan had created millions of refugees, and there were
terrorism problems associated with the Iran-Iraq war and other conflicts.
Even in Germany, several years before reunification, there
were many challenges.
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