Our Business

Economic Development is an industry that demands innovation and entrepreneurship, but it is overwhelmingly served by mature institutions whose hierarchies and ossified structures reward those who avoid mistakes rather than those who take risk, fail fast, and fail in unique ways – all while seeking novel solutions to long-standing problems.

Now is not the time for another big plan from any of the multinational bodies. It is the time for a small group of innovators and entrepreneurs to apply a new model for economic development. To make the world a better place by applying the versions of the same models that make the developed world Successful.

Who We Are (Board of Directors)

Michael A. Krafft is the Founder and Chairman of GCEEE and serves as Chief Executive Officer, Managing Partner and Director at M&A Media Group. Mr. Krafft also serves as Managing Partner at M&A Capital Partners, Inc. and Emerging Market Capital Partners (EMCP). For more than 20 years, Mr. Krafft has built deep relationships with leading strategic and institutional investors, private equity funds, funds of funds, hedge funds and venture capital firms. His expertise and network has enabled local growing companies to directly obtain capital, strategic direction and sound financial principles. He has led more than fifty joint venture agreements, mergers and acquisitions across the media and communications sector. In 1992, under the direction of Mr. Peter Gerwe, he established unprecedented avenues with StoryFirst across the former Soviet Union. As an executive with Metromedia, Mr. Krafft helped create global cluster strategies in Asia, Latin America, Centeral Eastern Europe, Baltics, Balkans, the former Soviet Union, and Central Asia. He spent eight years in global assignments prior to his appointment as a Vice President of Corporate Development at TIW. Mr. Krafft was based in Prague directing new venture development. He was a Board Member of the Russian National Orchestra and is proficient in Russian. Mr. Krafft is pursuing his research Ph.D in Applied Management and Decision Sciences with a specialization in International Finance at Walden Univesrity and has an M.B.A. degree in International Finance from the American Graduate School of International Management and A BA degree from DePaul University.

Craig L. Orbell joins our Board of Directors and is leading GCEEE as the Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Orbell commenced his career within PricewaterhouseCoopers specializing in senior auditing and valuation consulting. He earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, cum laude, thereafter, earning two graduate degrees with honors-an MBA in Finance and an MS in Accounting- at the Wharton Graduate Division of the University of Pennsylvania.

When he became a CPA he was responsible for audit field work for the PWC clients: E.I. Dupont, Campbell Soup, Crown, Cork & Seal Company, General Battery, Mack Truck, and the Vanguard Mutual Funds.

Mr. Orbell worked for four years in Moscow, Russia for TBS/CNN as a Finance Director of the Start-Up Free Speech Television Station Channel 6.Craig continued as a Financial Controller for Metromedia International Group for four years in Vienna, Australia.

Desiring to bring his family back to the USA, Mr. Orbell joined Adelphia Communications in 2001 as Florida Regional Director of Accounting and Budgeting.

Thereafter, in 2003 joined TetraTech Communication Services as Assistant Controller to fully implement SOX and improve the cost build ups for construction of telecommunications towers.

Recruited by the Kaiser Permanente Information Technology Division, Mr. Orbell began as a Senior Financial Consultant assigned to improving the KP-IT Policy on Software Capitalization. Mr. Orbell advanced two organizational levels; first, he was promoted to be Manager of Finance of the largest Business Area Partnership (BAP) of Kaiser, and then he advanced to be the Program Controller over all of the KP-IT SOX Remediation tracks.

Mr. Orbell is also President of Orbell Capital and Consulting (OCC). While leading workshops and speaking engagements for Financial and Non-Financial Executives in corporate settings, OCC’ s practice has specialized in the following areas: (1) Finance/ Accounting Department start up or reorganization, (2) SOX implementation and remediation, (3) Internal Audit Department Setup, (4) Revenue Recognition accounting, (5) Valuation and accounting for acquisitions, (6) Foreign Currency Exposure Management, Re-measurement or Translation of Foreign Currency Financial statements, (7) US GAAP and IFRS/ IAS Accounting, (8) Market Value Accounting, (9) Accounting for Hedging and Futures Market Transaction, and (10) Not-For-Profit Accounting and Reporting.

Additionally, Mr. Orbell is multilingual in English, French, and Spanish.

Mr. Narayanan is the Managing Partner at Technology Square Partners, a boutique strategic advisory firm with offices in San Francisco and Connecticut. The focus of the firm is to provide strategic financial advise to clients across emerging high-growth sectors in clean-tech and WiMax/LTE.

Srinath was most recently a Principal at Canaccord Adam’s investment banking group and was focused on leading the firm’s effort to provide West Coast-based clients with a broad range of investment banking services, including public offerings, private placements, and mergers and acquisitions advisory work across Internet media, software, communications and wireless sectors (www.canaccordadams.com).

Srinath was trained at Goldman Sachs in M&A, and has worked in a senior investment banking capacity at Banc of America Securities as well as a smaller boutique. Srinath also brings strong operational and technology experience working at various New England firms MRO Software (IBM), Fidelity Investments and SpringTide Networks (Lucent).

Srinath holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Bombay, a Masters in Computer Engineering from Northeastern University and is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Mr. Edward Ifshin with Pacific Vision Partners has had extensive experience in international business development and strategic investment ventures with established and emerging companies and technologies in the US, Japan and SE Asia (www.pacificvisionpartners.com).
Most recently he has been involved with leading companies in data visualization software technology; broadband digital entertainment and education/training projects; mobile interactive services and technologies and mobile wireless security technologies.

He has advised on interactive media & information technology projects in the private and public sectors in the US and Japan for such clients as: NTT Advanced Technologies, Atom Films, Nokia Ventures, Hitachi, ITOCHU Corporation, METI, Nikkei Multimedia, NTT DoCoMo, Dentsu Interactive, Shidax Venture Fund, Global Business Network, NEC, KDDI, Softbank BB and SONY Computer Entertainment.

Edward was an advisor for an international project supported by the Ford & Rockefeller Foundations focusing on creativity, emerging technologies and new business models and was on the planning committee and participant in the 2006 Global Leadership Forum on Economic and Cultural Development held in San Jose, California, and which focused on digital media as an engine of regional development and urban revitalization.

He is a contributor on digital media for Japanese publications, and panelist at ICT seminars in the US and Japan.

Edward earned a graduate degree from the University of Chicago in Political Science. As a former U.S. diplomat has had assignments in Japan, SE Asia and Western Europe. He is proficient in Japanese, Malay, Thai and Dutch.

Bruce Abramson, Ph.D., J.D.
[email protected]
phone: +1-202-299-4171

Dr. Bruce Abramson is the President of Informationism, Inc., a San Francisco-based consultancy serving an international clientele. He has twenty-five years experience as a technologist, an economic analyst, and an attorney, exploring the various aspects of the global transition from industrial age to information age. His current consulting practice provides expert testimony in matters related to remedies, valuation, and technology industry analysis. He has also announced the early 2009 launch of The Reinvention Center, an innovative combination of the best elements of co-working, incubation consulting, networking, and club membership. The Reinvention Center will operate as a social incubator built to launch an entrepreneurial community, providing each member with a supportive, collaborative environment for the professional and personal reinvention necessary to leverage passion and skill into commercial success.

Dr. Abramson has served on the faculty of the University of Southern California, as a research adjunct to the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University, and as a law clerk for the Hon. Arthur J. Gajarsa of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. His clients have included Fortune 500 companies, major research universities, some of the nation’s largest law firms, legal sole practitioners, U.S. and foreign governments, the World Bank, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He has won multiple research grants and contracts; advised governmental and intergovernmental agencies, startup companies, educational foundations, and non-profit organizations; published over fifty scholarly articles; presented more than fifty invited lectures; and served on the editorial boards of several journals. He has contributed to the scholarly literature of Computer Science, Management Science, and Law, and is the author of Digital Phoenix: Why the Information Economy Collapsed and How it Will Rise Again, (MIT Press, 2005) (Simplified Chinese version, ShangHai Yuandong Press, 2008); India’s Journey Toward an Effective Patent System (World Bank, 2007); and The Secret Circuit: The Little-Known Court Where the Rules of the Information Age Unfold (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).