Charles River Associates (CRA) Strengthens Capabilities in Energy & Environment, Life Sciences, Insurance Economics, and the Middle East Region

Firm Announces Three New Vice Presidents and Two New Senior Consultants

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Charles River Associates (NASDAQ: CRAI), a worldwide leader in providing management, economic, and financial consulting services, today announced that it has strengthened its Energy & Environment and Life Sciences practices as well as its Middle East Region with the addition of three new Vice Presidents—Christopher Goncalves, Gill Eapen, and Khaled Alohali. CRA also announced that Dr. Richard Phillips and Gary Venter have become senior consultants within its Insurance Economics practice.

“Recruiting established leaders to our organization is an important element of our growth strategy and it is a pleasure to welcome these distinguished consultants to CRA,” said CRA's President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Maleh. “Their experiences demonstrate the diverse consulting capabilities CRA brings to bear in helping to solve complex litigation issues and business challenges around the world.”

Energy & Environment

Christopher Goncalves has 20 years of experience in the energy and financial industries, including strategic business planning, market and regulatory analysis, commercial structuring and negotiation, project development and financing, asset acquisitions and divestitures, and international carbon markets. Mr. Goncalves is also a seasoned industry and damages expert witness with experience in international energy litigation and arbitration. Mr. Goncalves has provided these services to large global energy companies and utilities, national energy companies, state energy agencies, independent developers, equity investors, banks, and law firms. He holds a BA degree from Brown University and a MA degree from John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is based in CRA’s Washington, DC office.

Life Sciences

Gill Eapen has more than two decades of experience in finance, economics, planning, and management. In addition, he has published extensively on economic valuation under uncertainty and is the author of two books about valuation, decision making, and management. His areas of specialty include economic valuation, decision making, risk management, portfolio optimization, deal structuring, and private equity. Prior to joining CRA, Mr. Eapen founded Decision Options, a pioneer in providing economic value-based decision making, risk, and portfolio management to the life sciences, technology, and energy industries. Mr. Eapen has also held senior positions at Pfizer and Deloitte & Touche. He holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, a MS degree in Engineering from Northwestern University, and a MBA degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Chicago. Mr. Eapen is also a CFA charter holder and a member of the Boston Society of Security Analysts. He is based in CRA’s Boston office.

Middle East Region

Khaled Alohali has22 years of consulting experience in technical, executive, and advisory positions, and has managed public, private, and joint projects. He specializes in industrial strategic business planning, operations startup, organizational structuring, project management, product development, and systems design and implementation. His experience includes work with regional and international investors as well as governmental agencies in the US, UK, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. Prior to joining CRA, Mr. Alohali was the Vice President of the Saudi Arabian Industrial Development Program, a public initiative he helped to establish and tasked with planning, promoting, and executing industrial manufacturing in Saudi Arabia. One of the projects he managed was for the Saudi Supreme Economic Council and involved the development of a plan for reengineering the Saudi Government Industrial Agencies and the consolidation of over 10 organizations. He also represented the Saudi Arabian Government as the Secretary General of the Saudi Arabian Japanese Industrial Cooperation Taskforce. Mr. Alohali also worked as the COO and Deputy CEO for Strategic Planning for the first private aviation transportation company in Saudi Arabia; he became the first project manager to obtain five air carrier licenses in more than 60 years of Saudi aviation history. He is well-versed in the workings of governmental agencies, processes, investments, and policy decision making in Saudi Arabia as well as in national laws and regulatory development and implementation. He is regularly called upon by national conferences to speak about public initiatives in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Alohali holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia. He is based in CRA’s Riyadh office and is focused on driving CRA’s growth across the Kingdom.

Insurance Economics

Dr. Richard Phillips is the chair of the Risk Management and Insurance Department at Georgia State University and the C.V. Starr Professor of Risk Management and Insurance. Since 1997, he has also held the appointment of Fellow of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Phillips has held visiting appointments at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (1996–1997), at the Wharton School (2003), and at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2007–2008). Professor Phillips is a co-editor for the Journal of Risk and Insurance. His research interests lie at the intersection of corporate finance and insurance economics. His current interests are the impact of risk on corporate decision making, the functioning of insurance markets, and the role of rating agencies in the economy. He holds a BS degree in Mathematics from the University of Minnesota, a MA degree in Insurance and Finance from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD degree in Insurance and Finance from the University of Pennsylvania.

Gary Venter has more than 30 years of experience as a practitioner in the insurance and reinsurance industry. A consulting actuary and an adjunct professor at Columbia University, Mr. Venter has authored a number of research articles and he is a frequent lecturer on actuarial topics worldwide. His current research focuses on insurance mathematics, such as heavy-tailed distributions, life contingencies, multivariate distributions, empirical Bayesian estimation, risk measures, and compound process. Previously, Mr. Venter was a managing director at Instrat Group where he worked in the areas of risk, reinsurance, and financial modeling. He holds an AB degree in Mathematics and Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a MS degree in Mathematics from Stanford University.

About Charles River Associates (CRA)

Charles River Associates(R) is a global consulting firm specializing in litigation, regulatory, and financial consulting, and management consulting. CRA advises clients on economic and financial matters pertaining to litigation and regulatory proceedings, and guides corporations through critical business strategy and performance-related issues. Since 1965, clients have engaged CRA for its unique combination of functional expertise and industry knowledge, and for its objective solutions to complex problems. Headquartered in Boston, CRA has offices throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Detailed information about Charles River Associates, a registered trade name of CRA International, Inc., is available at http://www.crai.com.

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