Dr. Bennett received his B.S. in finance from the University of Tennessee and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been a Manager of International Financial Services for KPMG Peat Marwick and is currently Professor of Strategy and Marketing at the University of San Francisco and President of his own consulting firm, Achieving Unlimited.

He has extensive work and consulting experience in competitive strategies, customer satisfaction and retention, strategic planning, economic feasibility studies, and marketing research for a number of international, national, and regional/local firms. Among the clients: American Bankers Association, Bank of America, Citicorp, First Data Resources, Kaiser-Permanente, KeyBanks, Kirchman Corporation, KPMG Peat Marwick, Medtronic, Inc., Target Department Stores, Total Systems Inc., TWA, the US Treasury Department, and the US Agency for International Development. Dr. Bennett has substantial international experience in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Dr. Bennett also teaches in executive management programs at the University of Wisconsin, University of Washington, Georgetown University, LSU, and the University of Colorado. He has published articles on strategy, competitive advantage, and marketing in the Journal of Communication, American Banker, Information and Management,: The International Journal of Information Management, Health Marketing Quarterly, Journal of Retail Banking and Bank Marketing. His newest book is entitled, 'Create Your Destiny with PRIDE (Passion, Resolve, Innovation, Dreams, and Ethics).

As President of Achieving Unlimited, Dr. Bennett specializes in speaking and consulting on competitive advantage strategies and on developing employee and management cultures and organizational infrastructures that focus on exceptional performance---both for the individual and for the organization

MOST REQUESTED TOPICS:
Achieving and Sustaining Competitive Advantage
This session focuses on understanding and implementing profit-focused competitive strategies. Discussion and evaluation of strategies is based on solid empirical evidence of the strategies effects on profitability. The emphasis is on specific, practical techniques that managers and executives can use to achieve competitive advantage for their financial institutions.

The Key to Advantage: Customer Retention
How does a bank gain competitive advantage? The key to understanding and implementing competitive advantage strategies is a focus on long-term, above industry-average profitability. The mantra of modern banking is that new customer acquisition drives superior profitability. Not only is the mantra wrong, but this fascination diverts attention, emphasis, and, more importantly, resources from the real key to exceptional bank performance and profitability ... CUSTOMER RETENTION.

Identifying and Closing Competitive GAPs
Relative perceived quality has twice the impact on profitability of any factor ever studied (Strategic Planning Institute, Harvard University). This session covers the four factors that consumers and businesses use to evaluate the quality of a bank or financial institution. Participants will leave with an instrument to measure the competitive GAPs in their bank and an understanding of how to monitor and close these GAPs for increased customer retention and profitability.

Create Your Destiny With P.R.I.D.E. (Passion, Resolve, Innovation, Dreams, and Ethics)
What a powerful idea ... to take control of your life and create the unique destiny you have always longed for. But few actually know how to shape their destiny. Where do you start? What are the keys to unlocking it? How do you take action and follow through? This presentation answers these questions and provides five pillars (Passion, Resolve, Innovation, Dreams, Ethics) for achieving your destiny and becoming the person you might have been. The speech uses stories, anecdotes, role-modeling, and famous quotes to illustrate each of these five elements. The final section called "The Beginning," integrates the five pillars of PRIDE and provides a simple yet powerful system that you can use to CREATE YOUR DESTINY.