Structure, Dynamics and Evolution of the US Defense Industry

Summary:
This talk will examine the US defense industrial base, focusing on what drives and motivates the behavior of the defense industry and its government customer. The talk will include a review of several analytical methodologies used to examine the forces driving the dynamics and evolution of the defense industry.

Bio:
Pierre Chao is a Co-Founder and Advisor Emeritus of Enlightenment Capital. He brings three decades of aerospace/defense investment, equity analysis, investment banking, strategy management consulting and M&A due diligence expertise. Prior, he co-founded Renaissance Strategic Advisors (RSAdvisors), a premier Washington, DC and London based aerospace & defense strategy, and mergers & acquisitions due diligence firm. From 1995-2003, Pierre was an Institutional Investor ranked aerospace & defense equity analyst with Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Credit Suisse First Boston. He led the #1 ranked U.S. and global aerospace & defense team every year eligible.

He began his career as a mergers & acquisitions banker in the New York and London offices of Prudential-Bache Capital Funding focusing on aerospace & defense. He was also a director at JSA International, a Boston/Paris-based management-consulting firm that focused on the aerospace & defense industry and a Senior Fellow and Director of Defense-Industrial Initiatives at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC non-partisan think tank. He is a guest lecturer at the National Defense University and the Defense Acquisition University, and was a member of the Secretary of Defense's Defense Business Board.

Pierre earned dual degrees from M.I.T. and is a holder of the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. He has a Top Secret security clearance.