The Intelligent Decision Partners Team
Managing Partners
Jordan Berliner is an expert in helping businesses improve their internal functioning, operations, tactics and strategies. Using human intelligence as hard data along with inferential and pattern determination, he develops in-depth analyses and practical recommendations for action toward achievable goals.
Jordan was a senior executive with several Fortune 500 and mid-cap companies, including Abbott Laboratories, Applied Biosystems, Cygnus Therapeutic Systems, and Fisher Scientific Company. He had global responsibility for organization development and strategy in the US, UK, Western Europe, Canada, and Japan. He was a Director with Ernst & Young LLP, where he helped rebuild two of their key global practices and developed the human intelligence feedback process they now use. As President of The Client Builders, Inc. he helped improve organizational functioning and strategy in companies as varied as telecommunications, construction, software development, and aerospace as well as in firms in law, financial services, and architecture.
He holds seven US Patents for chemical and biological discoveries, and has extensive R&D and technology experience through his corporate and consulting work. While at Abbott, he formed a key new biomedical venture for the company. He functions as our scientific and technology lead in assignments where current knowledge and understanding of scientific and technical principles is fundamental to the successful execution of the project.
He has an MBA in Marketing and Behavioral Science from The University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business, Masters degree in Chemistry from Loyola University, and a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry from The University of Chicago.
Dr. Maria Velez de Berliner is a recognized subject-matter expert on the identification and analysis of regulatory, political, economic, social, and cultural risk worldwide. An area of specialization is Latin America including security and terrorism. This expertise qualifies her to be an Instructor on global risk at a U.S. Special Operations School.
Her analyses of economic and political risks in Latin America appear in: The Harvard Business Review Brasil; The Harvard Business Review Latin America; The Latin America Advisor; The Latin America Advisor-Energy Edition; Location International (London); and, Transnational Organized Crime (London). She was the featured analyst on India in Latin America on Bloomberg Reporte Financiero, and on Security Threats in Latin America on International Investor.
She has extensive business and government agency experience through senior managerial positions at a global scientific instrumentation company, an international food engineering company, a noted design partnership, and as a consultant to several government-oriented think tanks and a government technology transfer and business development center.
She lectures in the USA and internationally at venues such as: The ODNI’s 2007 Open Source Intelligence Conference; Satellite 2001 through 2006; ISS Cyber Security Conference; and, Canning House (London). She is a guest lecturer at Lake Forest College (Illinois) and at Florida International University.
Dr. Velez de Berliner received a Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa from Lake Forest College for her contributions to Security and Intelligence, Political Science, and International Relations. She is a Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Lake Forest College and has a Master’s degree with Honors in International Relations, with specialization in international security, from the University of Pittsburgh.
Michael Marks is a senior Washington-based executive, with 30 years of public and private sector experience in international affairs and national security issues, technology competitiveness, innovative open source intelligence methodologies, and business development in the federal government marketplace.
He is a seasoned businessperson, international negotiator and interlocutor with the highest levels of the U.S. government and industry, as well as a corporate strategic planner and decision-maker. He is an accomplished writer, manager and administrator, having served as staff director and primary author for several Presidential and USG Agency-level reports and studies. He holds a Masters degree in Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a Recipient of Jaycee’s “Outstanding Young Men of America Award” and the State Department’s “Superior Honor Award”, and is listed in several national biographical publications.
Michael was a founder of Synthesis Partners, a leading innovative open source decision intelligence firm. Prior to that he was President, Michael B. Marks and Associates and an Adjunct Staff Member with the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). Michael also served as Executive Vice President, Projectavision, Inc., Vice President for Corporate Development, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Vice President for Strategic and Government Operations, Reality Mobile, LLC. He served in government for ten years, holding a number of high-level policy positions, both in the Executive and Legislative branches, including Senior Policy Advisor to the Office of Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Assistant Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Executive Office of the President; Senior Policy Advisor to the Under Secretary for Security Assistance, Science and Technology, U.S. Department of State; and Legislative Assistant for Foreign Affairs and National Security for Senator Jake Garn.