About The Principals Academy Team

Unlike other management programs, The Principals Academy is presented by a TEAM of speakers, with extensive experience working with and for A/E firms. This insider perspective guarantees that the information you receive will be relevant to your job and the industry. 

Mark Zweig
Founder and Director, ZweigWhite

Mark C. Zweig is best known as the leading expert in management for the AEC and environmental industry. With more than 30 years as a student of the industry, Mark knows AEC and environmental consulting firms inside and out. He founded Mark Zweig & Associates in 1988, which later became ZweigWhite in 1991. Mark has worked with firms of all sizes and types throughout the U.S. and abroad, and helped them solve just about every problem—from strategic business planning, to turnarounds, to partner separations, to organizational restructuring, to mergers and acquisitions, to jump starting marketing, to dealing with cash flow crises, solving tricky ownership transition scenarios, and more. He has authored 10 books on AEC and environmental firm management and thousands of leaders of AEC and environmental consulting firms turn to his editorials in The Zweig Letter each week for information, insight, and inspiration.
 

Ian Rusk, ASA
President & CEO, ZweigWhite

Ian Rusk oversees ZweigWhite’s Advisory Services and Management Education divisions. These groups provide client firms in the AEC industry with consulting services and educational offerings covering a variety of management topics and disciplines, including strategic business planning, marketing consulting, project management, business valuation, mergers and acquisitions, ownership transition planning, leadership development and financial management. Ian has provided financial advisory consulting services to hundreds of A/E firms large and small, throughout the U.S. and abroad. He conducts numerous seminars on these topics and is a frequent speaker at various industry conferences and events including the AIA Annual Convention, and the ACEC Annual Convention. Ian holds the Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) designation with the American Society of Appraisers. Past experience includes 10 years in the banking industry as a lender and financial analyst where he provided financial services to middle market firms in many industries, including the AEC and Environmental industry. He holds an MBA with a concentration in finance and entrepreneurship from Babson College and a BA in economics from Tufts University.
 

Christine Brack, PMP
Principal, ZweigWhite

Christine Brack's business planning engagements design strategic and tactical initiatives relative to leadership, marketing, organizational structure, and operational improvement. Christine also consults clients on project delivery--analyzing and optimizing current systems, and implementing changes and best practices via firm-wide education and training. Her AEC experience comes after spending six years as a project manager with a general contractor on new construction and adaptive reuse projects in the higher education arena. Using her knowledge of this market and maintaining an expertise on trends and drivers, she advises clients interested in entering this segment. Also prior to ZweigWhite, Christine was a strategy consultant at both Frost & Sullivan and The Economist Intelligence Unit. There she managed a variety of international projects, including product development, market expansion, and branding efforts in the mobile and consumer electronics space. Christine holds an MBA from Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management, a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) from Saint Mary's of Notre Dame and Bachelor of Arts (BA) in German Language from Purdue University. She also holds the Project Management Professional (PMP) designation through the Project Management Institute (PMI) and is an active member in that society.

Gregory Hart
Associate, ZweigWhite

Gregory Hart advises ZweigWhite’s A/E and environmental firm clients on financial matters such as business valuation, fairness and solvency opinions, ownership transition planning, ESOP-related services, mergers and acquisitions advisory services, and financial management. Prior to joining ZweigWhite, Greg was with The Spofford Group Insurance Brokerage Ltd. where he focused on structuring non-traditional environmental insurance solutions designed to manage business and liability risks and to facilitate real estate, merger and acquisition, and similar transactions. Greg began his career as an environmental scientist with GEI Consultants, Inc., a nationwide environmental, geotechnical, and water resources engineering firm, where he provided environmental consulting services to clients in the areas of manufacturing, power generation, and real estate development. He holds an MBA from the Syracuse University School of Management as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Science from the University of Massachusetts.

John Soter
Principal, ZweigWhite

John Soter is a Principal with our Strategic Advisory Services group. He brings over 25 years experience as a consultant and draws on best practices from both Fortune 500 and emerging growth companies where innovation, flexibility, focus, and consistency are critical to success. He specializes in assisting clients with architecting learning and high performance environments. He has worked with clients in the engineering, healthcare, energy, pharmaceutical, and hospitality industries. John’s areas of expertise are strategic business planning and implementation; business, management and systems audits; process design and complexity reduction; post merger integration and change management; and operating effectiveness improvement. His skills include facilitating executive consensus on strategy and direction, developing and translating goals to align the organization, designing and implementing measurement and management processes and systems, and training executives and managers in strategic, leadership, business development, and managerial skills. Prior to joining ZweigWhite, John was Managing Director with Brooks International, Navigant Consulting, and Decision Management International responsible for business in North America and Europe. John received a BA from Tufts University.

Locations and Dates

Registration information
 

Email ZweigWhite Management Education
Contact ZweigWhite Management Education via web form
Call 800-466-6275