180 Partners uses the latest science and technology to improve business performance. With our depth of expertise and experience, we offer a perfect marriage of cutting edge tools in the hands of seasoned professionals.
Our approach is based on the groundbreaking work of our founder Charles Jacobs in applying the insights of cognitive neuroscience to business management.
Charles Jacobs
Founder and Managing Partner
Charles S. Jacobs is the founder and managing partner of 180 Partners, and the author of Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science. For over two decades, he has helped the leadership of the most renowned corporations in the world improve the performance of their businesses. He numbers among his clients fifty of the Fortune 100, and has worked in Europe, Asia, South America, and the U.S.
His unique Smart Execution℠ process enables managers to use our new understanding of how the brain works to comprehensively rethink their businesses, creating more robust competitive strategies and the performance-oriented organizations needed to implement them. His work provides the key to overcome the number one obstacle to meaningful improvement in business performance—the rapid and effective management of change.
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly says his book “turns prevalent management theory on its head and will have lasting impact on how it is taught in business schools and implemented in organizations." The Harvard Business Review calls it “a solid job of surveying some sensible management practices." The Financial Times declares “the book raises fascinating and important questions. Managers should take them seriously.” Business Week states the “book will boost the effectiveness of many a corporate drill sergeant.”
He completed his B.A., M.A., and work toward his PhD at the University of Michigan. He lives in Boston with his two daughters.
Stewart DeBruicker
Partner, Marketing and Finance
Stewart DeBruicker is a former Professor of Marketing at the Harvard Business School and the Wharton School. He has a broad range of classroom experience in MBA, Executive MBA and custom corporate executive education programs. He specializes in the integration of strategy, marketing and business unit finance. He is now an independent strategic planning consultant and executive educator.
As a Strategic Planning Consultant he works with general managers, senior functional managers and their business unit teams. He helps them grow share of market and shareholder value. His approach combines qualitative judgments and evidence-based analytics. With his support multifunctional teams define the purpose of their business. They develop demand-side macro, micro and competitive positioning insights. They identify shared functional responsibilities, competitive resource requirements, action plans and operating metrics. They make projections of market share, earnings and cash flow. They make powerful business cases to attract capital. Overall, his consulting clients make life difficult for their competitors and better for their customers and shareholders.
He has a special interest in advertising and promotion. He collaborates with client teams to drive brand share and shareholder value using evidence-based media, messages and metrics
As an Executive Educator, he designs, develops and delivers customized programs that make client teams more cohesive, agile and faster to market. He has completed dozens of case writing and custom executive education projects in the medical diagnostics, pharmaceutical and automobile industries. He has served on the faculties of advanced management programs at INSEAD, the London Business School, the Stockholm School of Economics, the University of Cape Town and corporate universities for high-potential executives at General Electric,
James R. Petite, Jr.
Partner, Neuroscience and Business
James Petite is a rare breed—a successful businessman, a consummate scientist, and a talented educator. With over twenty years in brain scanning and diagnostic imaging, the theme tying together all of his work is the application of the latest discoveries in neuroscience to improve the quality of our lives and the performance of our institutions.
Jim is the founder of two companies in the neurophysiological space, and has had long term consulting relationships with leading companies in medical devices and biotechnology. He is the author of sixteen published papers on neurophysiology, and has taught at Bowdoin and Georgetown.
As a scientist, his specialty is the use of multi-modality neuroimaging technology, including fMRI, PET, and MEG, to further our understanding of brain disorders as disruptions of networks. As a business consultant, he leverages his knowledge of the brain to improve the performance of organizations, and the decision-making and leadership of business executives.
Jim has a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Georgetown University and splits his time between Boston and Woodstock Vermont.
Gregg Lichtenstein
Partner, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
A serial entrepreneur, Gregg has started and led several technology ventures, including a hardware based power quality company, a technology services business focused on the telecom market and a B2C internet company.
He has created a proven system for assessing and developing entrepreneurial skills. He has coached over 400 entrepreneurs at different skill levels, in all kinds of businesses (e.g., high-tech, manufacturing, service, etc.), in different parts of the world as well as in different kinds of settings – within corporations, family businesses, in strategic alliances and independent startups.
Gregg is also a successful educator, speaker and author. His most recent book, Investing in Entrepreneurs, was published by ABC-CLIO in 2010. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and his coaching system has been featured in the New York Times and on America Public Media’s Marketplace show, aired on National Public Radio. His coaching system is based on scientifically documented results that have been published in academically recognized, peer-reviewed journals.
Gregg has his Ph.D. in entrepreneurship from the Wharton School and lives on the New Jersey shore with his wife and son.
Paul Sherman
Partner, Executive Coaching
Described by Forbes Magazine as a “miracle-maker—or, more precisely a miracle medium,” Paul is a senior executive, workshop leader, consultant, and certified professional coach specializing in individual and organizational performance.
Over his 25 year career, he has brought his unique blend of people and business acumen to over 50 major corporations and government agencies worldwide including: Procter and Gamble, The U.S. State Department, EMC and Deloitte.
His extensive experience includes leadership development, marketing and business development, organizational assessment, and implementing strategic change initiatives, including mergers, product launches, and new information technologies.
Paul has held key management positions at Cambridge Technology Partners (Marketing, Engagement Management and Training), Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (Learning and Development) and Amherst Consulting Group (Chief Operating Officer). Most recently he served as the Vice President of Global Learning and Development for Vertex Pharmaceuticals. He has also served on the faculty of Cambridge College where he designed and taught a new graduate level program in Personal and Professional Coaching.
A summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard University, Paul holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and a Masters in Human Resources Education from Boston University. He lives with his husband David and their dog Brando in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Scott Richards
Partner, Executive Presence
Scott has combined careers in professional acting and management consulting, giving him a unique perspective on both. His consulting experience has taught him how to be proficient not only on stage, but behind the scences. His acting has made him incredibly effective working with executives on presence and authenticity.
He has performed on and off-Broadway, in regional theatres, in 60 national and regional commercials, and feature films. He has guest or co-starred in over a dozen network television series, including Friends, Without a Trace, CSI:NY, The Practice, Providence, The Guardian, The D.A and Hawthorne. He has taught acting and directed productions for the stage and was a Board member of Screen Actors Guild.
For nearly thirty years, he has also served as a management consultant, working with over 60 of the Fortune 500. He has designed and run executive retreats focused on strategy creation and implementation, coached Presidents and Vice-Presidents on leadership skills, run scores of team-building sessions, led functional, x-functional and even x-company process improvement teams, has coached internal consultant groups and has designed and delivered hundreds of various OD training workshops.
Scott has his MFA from Brandeis University and lives on the ocean in Hull, Massachusetts.