Welcome to Global Markets Consulting Group, LLC

Global Markets Consulting Group (GMCG), a woman-owned small business with headquarters in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia was formed in 2008 as a full-service international consultancy. Its principals have 60-years of combined experience in strategic communications, marketing, international deal-making, strategic planning, business development, conference facilitation, trade mission planning and international political, economic and commercial analysis, especially in the developing world. GMCG's specific geographic foci are Africa, the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia. The company also has significant experience in the economies of Guam, the Mariana Islands and the Western Pacific. GMCG enjoys extensive relationships with political decision-makers and major government contractors and institutional investors in the United States and various world capitals. Currently, Global Markets Consulting Group is working behind-the-scenes with a group of US companies that collectively account for a significant percentage of US private-sector investment in Africa.

Key Affiliations

GMCG is strategically affiliated with two well-established international consulting firms. AALC-Ltd., (formerly Armitage Associates and founded by former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) has been providing high-level international consulting, business development and troubleshooting assistance to major clients since 1993. Admiral Zumwalt & Consultants, Inc. (AZC) was founded by the late Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr., the former Chief of Naval Operations (1970-74). AZC specializes in international and homeland security issues. These affiliations allow GMCG to "reach back" into AALC's and AZC's resource pools. Through these strategic affiliations the company has access to international funding sources including the leading Export-Import Banks, as well as substantial institutional investors.

GMCG Leadership Team

GMCG's greatest asset is its experienced leadership team that brings together strategic marketing and international deal-making experience in the most challenging and difficult environments.

Nan Ducklow is GMCG's Principal Owner and CEO. She has almost three decades of experience in strategic marketing, support for international member-oriented associations and conference/meeting planning. Nan instills upon the company a dedication to providing affordable and scalable services with uniform excellence. She retired as an Assistant Director at the National Association of Homebuilders, representing more than 200-thousand member companies where she had the daunting task of providing strategic support and direction to member associations in small rural areas to managing quarterly and annual conferences that often drew upwards of 70-thousand participants. Her efforts extended to affordable housing projects in South Africa and the states of the former Soviet Union.

Nan also has extensive experience in writing and editing, from magazine articles, brochures and website content to serving as Managing Editor of Directions magazine on Guam, the largest regional business publication in the Western Pacific. She oversaw coverage of a business environment that includes the largest US defense contractors serving military installations from Hawaii to Japan and South Korea. While living on Guam, she hosted a weekly radio program geared to the Guam business community. Nan was a consultant to the Guam Humanities Council where she directed fundraising and organizational support for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Guam's liberation from Japan during World War II, one of the largest international events ever to be held on the island.

Nan has traveled throughout the developing world, from the Middle East to China, Vietnam and Singapore organizing events to support international deal-making efforts in the telecommunications sector. Her skill sets and experience allows clients to utilize GMCG's services for short, medium or long-term marketing projects without the need to hire additional personnel. Nan holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin, studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and was an apprentice with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. She is a certified fitness and water aerobics instructor.

Anthony A. ("Tony") Das is GMCG's President and COO. His entire professional career has been in international affairs as a foreign correspondent, US diplomat, business executive and consultant.

In 1978 Tony was appointed Voice of America Radio's Bureau Chief for West and Central Africa, based in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (where he learned to speak French the hard way) and eventually reported from all 50 nations of what was then the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union). Upon returning to the United States, he served as VOA's Bureau Chief at the United Nations during a time of great international turmoil that included the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador and global efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. When the National Security Council mandated the creation of a VOA broadcast service aimed at Angola and Mozambique, where communist governments were being challenged by pro-western forces, he was tapped to lead that operation. Tony then was assigned to VOA's parent agency -- the United States Information Agency -- where he was Deputy Director for Southern Africa and Director of the agency's "Fast Policy Guidance" unit, which provided real-time public affairs support to US embassies around the world on critical foreign policy issues. He then moved to the State Department as Director of Public Communication and was assigned to provide public communications support to the office of then-Vice President Dan Quayle during the latter's foreign travels.

Tony ended his public service career as Executive Secretary of the US Department of Commerce under the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, where he helped plan the Secretary's foreign trade and investment missions including the first-ever such trip to South Africa after the fall of apartheid. Tony earned Superior Honor Awards at the United States Information Agency, for his role in the 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Iceland and from the State Department for his management of global public communications. After Secretary Brown's tragic death in a plane crash Tony retired from the federal government as a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES-3) and entered the private sector as a consultant with Armitage Associates where he supported a US-based international telecommunications client, Startec Global Communications. Tony was later hired by Startec as part of the team that took the company public and held positions as a division COO and corporate EVP responsible for negotiating international telecommunications agreements primarily in Africa, the Middle East, India, China and Southeast Asia. He was the first US executive to close telecommunications operating agreements in Palestine and North Korea. In 2002, he helped arrange the sale of Startec's subsidiary on Guam, and joined the new company as CEO, establishing relationships in the Philippines, South Korea and the Mariana Islands. During that time he was a regular contributor on foreign policy issues to the Pacific Daily News, the Gannet newspaper in the western Pacific.

Prior to becoming President of GMCG, Tony held positions as Managing Director for consulting at a Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business in the IT arena and as Senior Director for Africa, at a major US defense contractor. He holds an MA in Communications from Michigan State University, as well as an MA in International Relations and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Tony is an avid motorcyclist and is a certified Master SCUBA and Rescue Diver.

Turnkey Solutions for our Clients

Global Markets Consulting Group was created as a "one stop shop" for clients interested in entering or expanding their footprints in emerging markets. Our company is poised to assist: US federal, state and local governments; US and foreign businesses and international business, trade and cultural associations. While GMCG welcomes private foreign commercial interests, we are not registered to represent foreign governments or government-owned entities in the United States. Our core competencies include:

• Development and implementation of strategic communications plans including crisis management, public affairs, press-relations and media placement services.
• Providing access to, and assistance in developing corporate proposals to assist the client that seeks public financing and/or private equity funding, especially in the international security sector.
• Development of strategic plans to enter markets selected by the client to include introductions to key players in the US and the foreign market as well as planning foreign business development missions and accompanying the client as a top advisor with intimate knowledge of local business, cultural, and political issues.
• Development of a strategic marketing plan and provision of market-specific promotional materials including web content development, conference planning/facilitation, and media relations including the writing of speeches, opinion pieces and advertising copy, research and strategic advice about markets of interest to the client, including political risk analysis, explanation of the business environment, licensing laws and local practices, as well as competitive analysis.
• Troubleshooting when the client encounters difficulties in existing markets.

A Special Focus on Guam and the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) for the Upcoming Military Buildup

We at Global Markets Consulting Group have positioned ourselves to be a respected consultancy ideally poised to support Guam and CNMI business and government interests in the continental US ("CONUS"). GMCG understands the unique needs of Guam and the CNMI, based upon our on-island experience as well as having a combined six decades of experience in dealing with Washington bureaucracy and political leadership. We have been heavily involved in managing business and media interests on Guam and Saipan as well as interfacing with Guam and CNMI media and political leadership on-island(s) and in Washington, DC. Our team has extensive past performance in US government contracting, especially with the Department of Defense, and can provide invaluable strategic advice, tactical leadership and proposal-writing capabilities to Guam and CNMI companies interested in securing contracts related to the upcoming military buildup. GMCG's extensive personal relationships with senior officials of major CONUS defense contractors help Guam and CNMI clients, including HubZone companies to team with major players in the buildup to which they would otherwise not have access. We understand that Guam and the CNMI have been wary of off-island opportunists, and are devoting ourselves to serving local needs at scalable and cost-effective prices. GMCG prides itself as being the ideal "one-stop-shop" for interface between the islands and CONUS.

Board of Senior Advisors

Global Markets Consulting Group has established a "blue ribbon" Board of Advisors to serve as a resource for advice and counsel in assisting our clients.

Jeffrey Miller, President and Managing Director of AALC-Ltd. As the former Senior Vice President of the US Export-Import Bank, Mr. Miller is an expert at arranging international credit and finance. When he left public service, he was managing a $70-billion Loan, Guarantee and Insurance portfolio. He represented ExIm Bank with numerous heads of state and ministers on all continents. Among Mr. Miller's more noteworthy transactions were: $2-billion medium term and $1-billion short term credit facilities for Indonesia; credit facilities for state-owned entities including oil companies, utilities and banks in Algeria, Mexico, Brazil, India, Russia Uzbekistan and Venezuela; and managed the most successful export credit agency repossession of an airline (Varig). He is on the Advisory Board of La Bock Technologies, Broad Street Capital and Interlink Capital Strategies.

Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt USMC (Ret.) President of Admiral Zumwalt & Consultants, Inc. His 26 years of service as a US Marine infantry officer, including deployments to Vietnam and Desert Storm allow Mr. Zumwalt to bring to GMCG an extensive background in security-related issues. In the private sector, Mr. Zumwalt served as Executive Vice President of ICTS, the world's largest aviation security company. He returned to government service as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. In that capacity he worked with law enforcement agencies in the developing world, primarily South and Central America, to incorporate a human rights curriculum into their training. Mr. Zumwalt is an established writer and public speaker who has published hundreds of opinion pieces on foreign policy, defense and security issues for dozens of national newspapers and magazines. Best-selling author Sal Santoli featured Mr. Zumwalt as one of 56 military professionals in his book "Leading the Way" which documents the interviewees' most critical moments in combat from Vietnam to Somalia.

Ram Mukunda, Executive Chairman, President and CEO of India Global Capitalization. Mr. Mukunda brings a wealth of experience and past performance in business, engineering and creative marketing. He was the founder of Startec Global Communications that became the fourth largest Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telecommunications carrier sending telecommunications traffic into the emerging economies, including a major link to Uganda. He devised a revolutionary marketing strategy that targeted immigrant communities in the United States, Canada and Europe and offered them low-cost telecommunications services to their countries of origin and diaspora communities. His network spanned 50 countries with operating companies in the UK, Germany, Canada, France, Hong Kong and Guam. Mr. Mukunda has completed more than 15 acquisitions and investments in Asia, North America and Europe. He is a member of the Board of Visitors at the University of Maryland School of Engineering and served as a Council Member at the Belfer Center of Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Mukunda received Ernst and Young's "Entrepreneur of the Year Award" in 1998 and in 2000 won a prestigious ADDY award from the American Advertising Federation.