MPI has rapidly become one of the world’s fastest-growing, most respected research firms, completing surveys, studies and white papers for firms around the globe. MPI is currently at work on projects in industries ranging from automotive manufacturing to information technology to beauty salon management, on topics ranging from benchmark performance benchmarks to financial process metrics to customer value analysis. MPI’s client list reads like a Who’s Who of global management and strategy.

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MPI is a privately held firm whose principals include:

John Brandt | jbrandt@mpi-group.net

CEO and Founder of MPI, Brandt has spent more than two decades studying leadership in effective, purpose-driven organizations. An expert on how companies and communities can adapt themselves to the realities of new markets, new corporate structures, and new customer expectations, he is an accomplished management innovator, with a broad array of interests and responsibilities spanning his interests in management, technology and journalism.

Brandt combines two decades of experience in marketing, management, and consulting with a passion for journalism that has earned him more than 20 awards for reporting, writing, and editing. Most recently he served as President, Publisher and Editorial Director of the Chief Executive Group, publisher of Chief Executive, where his leadership transformed it from an also-ran into one of publishing’s most surprising comebacks.

Prior to joining Chief Executive, Brandt was publisher and editor-in-chief of IndustryWeek, the definitive source of current information and analyses of the world's foremost manufacturing organizations. Under his leadership, the once troubled IndustryWeek (the magazine had lost money for more than a decade) won more than 70 editorial awards for excellence while more than doubling its revenues, putting it solidly in the black. Most prominent among the numerous initiatives he launched at IW is IndustryWeek.com, an award-winning (and profitable) web venture that serves senior executives around the globe. Brandt also led the development of several pioneering, large-scale research efforts at IndustryWeek, including the IndustryWeek Census of Manufacturers, the IW Value Chain Survey, the World-Class Communities Project, the IndustryWeek 1000, and the World’s Best Managed Companies Program. Brandt was also involved in the IndustryWeek Best Plants program. He continues to write an award-winning column for IndustryWeek.

Brandt is also an internationally recognized expert on management and technology, lecturing frequently in the U.S. and abroad on topics including Leadership, Customer Value, Management Best Practices, Economic Outlook, Building World-Class Communities, and Manufacturing Strategies for the New Millennium. Brandt’s unique access and relationships with CEOs and top executive teams gives him an exceptional understanding of how traditional and non-traditional organizations can reinvent themselves through the intelligent use of advanced management theory and leading-edge technology. In both his speech presentations and advisory activities, Brandt combines these assets with his wit, research and insights to help organizations position themselves for a long and profitable future.

In addition, Brandt has been a lifestyle columnist for The Plain Dealer, one of the nation’s largest newspapers, and a humor columnist for Shaker Magazine, an award-winning regional publication.

A recipient of the prestigious Neal Award in 1998, Brandt has also served as a Neal Awards judge. He has also served as a judge for the National Association of Manufacturers Awards for Workforce Excellence, as an advisory board member of both SupplierInsight.com and Ken-Tool Manufacturing, and as a director of the Ohio MEMS Association and the Work in Northeast Ohio Council. Co-chair of the Northeast Ohio Product Innovation Initiative, Brandt is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Case Western Reserve University, where he held the James Dysart Magee Economics Fellowship.

George Taninecz | gtaninecz@mpi-group.net

Vice president of research for MPI, George Taninecz brings a wealth of management knowledge to his work shaping research studies, white papers and industry reports. His background includes a decade as a journalist covering strategy and management for IndustryWeek, a leading manufacturing magazine. While there, he also was a director of the America's Best Plants program, and he continues to serve as a judge for the Best Plants program. George also launched numerous research initiatives for the magazine, including the IW/MPI Census of Manufacturers.

He also has worked with the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. as a communications specialist, helping the manufacturing practice formulate and disseminate knowledge about lean manufacturing and helping the firm develop lean training materials.

George also currently works with the Lean Enterprise Institute, helping LEI develop workbooks and knowledge materials about lean manufacturing, most recently serving as editor and project manager of Creating Level Pull.

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