Cultural Differences & Cultural Diversity in International Business

Joe Lurie, Author of the Award Winning, Perception, And Deception, A Mind-Opening Journey Across Cultures, is Executive Director Emeritus of UC Berkeley's International House where he served for two decades. Currently a cross-cultural communications, speaker and university lecturer, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya and directed academic programs abroad in Ghana, France, and Kenya for the School for International Training.

Joe Amato began teaching at Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) in Marshall, Minnesota where he was a founder and chair of the History Department. He taught a range of courses in European intellectual and cultural history with a particular interest in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, German, Italian, and French histories and European rural life, as well as taught ethics and introductory social science courses. Joe has given countless lectures and talks on a variety of subjects in the region, throughout the state, Midwest, and at national conferences. Reading and speaking a variety of European languages—Italian, French, Russian, Spanish, and German (and some Biblical Greek) He is widely traveled in Western Europe from the British Isles and the Netherlands to southern Italy, Greece, and Sicily.

Jelle is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for people, cultures, technology, design, and food. With his company Zeropoint he works with virtual teams from Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Together with his colleague Bart van Loon, he has been dealing with virtual teams for the last 7 years.

Palle is a Danish podcaster and radio journalist traveling to every country in the world.

Mathilde is a 24-year old Master’s student at Copenhagen Business School within the field of business, language, and culture. She is currently doing an internship in Paris for a company that provides business assistance to Danish companies in France and helps Danish companies overcome the cultural barriers that exist between the two countries.

Odi (his calling name) just completed his Master degree program at Anglia Ruskin University, Uk, Cambridge, where he took a class in Intercultural Communication to help him realize his dream to make Nigeria a better country.

Natasha Aks is specializing on doing business in Russia and communicating effectively with Russians. She has been exposed to different cultures, studies, and work-wise, for the last 16 years, having lived and worked across the world, in Russia, the US, Germany, and in the UK. Natasha gained her practical business experience, having worked in media industries for over 11 years. Natasha’s work included acting as a mediator between Russian, Kazakh, Ukrainian, and English teams, bridging any possible gaps, identifying and resolving issues and problems, and, ultimately, making projects happen. Now she consults on doing business in Russia from the communications perspective and is a published author of a series of articles about doing business in Russia.

Henrik Jeppesen visited every country in the world just before his 28th birthday.