Quick Insight BlogTSG Principals
Robert W. Hess, Principal and CEO
Prem. C. Sundaram, Principal and President
Prem C. Sundaram
Professional Background
Prem obtained his MBA from The Anderson School of Management at UCLA, and has a Masters Degree in Natural Sciences from The University of Cambridge, England, specializing in Materials Science.
He is on the board of the Caltech Entrepreneurship Fellowship Program in Pasadena, assisting students to transform their scientific and technology research into start-up businesses. Prem is also a graduate of the award winning FastTrac™ entrepreneurial training program offered through the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Prem is actively involved in mentoring MBA students from UCLA in business plan development.
Prem has developed business, marketing, and research and development strategies for a number of companies including US Borax, Sun Microsystems, Peoplesoft, and LifeSparc (an automotive startup that subsequently received over $40m funding). He is currently on the advisory board of a Nano-technology company called Interface Sciences and has been instrumental in identifying and establishing markets for the technology.
At Sun Microsystems, Prem’s team provided novel strategic thinking for their process of managing innovative technologies. Working with their microprocessor division, he briefed senior management on the use of Real Options Strategy as a method to both value new technologies and guide market driven innovation.
Prem has spoken on keynote panels at COMDEX “Technology in the Workplace”, (Las Vegas) and CRM Vision “Customer Partnerships” (Stockholm) and has extensive experience in the development and use of marketing information and customer relationship management systems. He led the development and implementation of US Borax's global marketing, budgeting and forecasting decision support system.
As a core team member in a major cost reduction initiative working with McKinsey consulting, Prem succeeded in reducing US Borax head office sales and marketing costs by over 40% through technology, marketing segmentation and organizational changes.
Robert W. Hess
Professional Background
Robert is a Senior Fellow at The Center for the Digital Future, Annenberg School, University of Southern California, where he just led a two-year study of Internet usage within the US Department of Defense.
Robert’s military career included the command of ground and aviation units in the US Army, and senior level staff positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the US Department of State.
He holds a Masters of Business Administration from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, a Masters Degree in Area Studies from the School of International Service, The American University in Washington, DC, and a BA in history from the Virginia Military Institute.
Robert is a graduate of the Board of Directors Institute, Price Center for Entrepreneurship at University of California Los Angeles, and the Landaegger Institute for International Management at Georgetown University.
He speaks French and German and published articles on international defense issues during his service in the Pentagon and State Department. His recent writings focus on performance improvement in community banking. You can access his articles in Western Banking magazine or here on our website.
Personal Biography