Richard Drobnick was the director of the mid-career, one-year IBEAR MBA program at the USC Marshall School of Business (1982-94 and 2014-23).  He was also the founding director of the Marshall School’s Center for International Business (1990-2014), which was supported by the U.S. Department of Education as one of its 33 national resource centers on international business. Drobnick also served as USC’s inaugural Vice Provost for International Affairs (1994-2005). For the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), an association of presidents of 45 leading Pacific Rim research universities (www.apru.org), Drobnick was the inaugural Secretary General (1997-2002) and a member of the Steering Committee (1997-2011). He was also the Managing Director of the APRU World Institute, where he launched AWI’s Pacific Rim research programs on “Sustainability & Climate Change” and “Public Health” (2007-2011).

Drobnick specializes in Pacific Rim economic and business issues. He is the author of articles regarding international economics and business, as well as a co-author of Neither Feast nor Famine: Food Conditions to the Year 2000 and co-editor of Small Firms in Global Competition. Drobnick was Vice President (Academic) of the U.S. National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation (US-PECC, 1992-2004), was President of the American-Indonesian Chamber of Commerce of the West (1988-94), and was a Trustee of the Asia Society (2017-21). As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia (1967-1969), Drobnick served as an economic advisor to the Malaysian Department of Agriculture’s Farmers’ Association Movement.

Drobnick is Chairman Emeritus of the Asia Society Southern California Center and a member of its Advisory Board, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the board of the Pacific Century Institute, and Honorary Chairman of the Academy of Asia +Business.