Matthew S. Olson, Strategy & Management Practice
Corporate Executive Board Company, Washington, DC

Matthew Olson is an Executive Director of the Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ: EXBD). He has been with the firm and its founding parent, the Advisory Board Company, since 1982.

Across his 26 years with the firm, Mr. Olson has served as Research Director for the company’s strategy & management, innovation, human resources and financial services practice areas.

Mr. Olson’s own research interests center on the capabilities required by very large firms to create new businesses and new growth platforms to perpetuate their growth runs, as well as best practice in corporate strategy functions.

Mr. Olson holds an undergraduate and master’s degree from the University of Minnesota, as well as a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Study (SAIS).  He and his wife, Sally, have two children.

 

Derek C.M. van Bever, Chief Research Officer
Corporate Executive Board Company, Washington, DC

Derek van Bever is the Chief Research Officer of the Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ: EXBD).  He has also been a member of the firm’s Executive Committee since its founding, and was a member of the team that led the firm’s initial public offering roadshow in 1999.

Prior to assuming the role of CRO, Mr. van Bever served as Publisher of the Advisory Board Company, the Corporate Executive Board’s former parent.  Prior to that, he served in a variety of research and management positions within the Advisory Board Company, including executive director of the financial services practice.

In his role as CRO, Mr. van Bever is responsible for training and quality control for over 1,000 researchers based in the U.S., London and Gurgaon (India), and for authorship of signature content for the firm.  Mr. van Bever’s own research interests center on the barriers to growth in large companies as well as on the economics of customer loyalty in service businesses.  He has been invited to lecture on these and other topics at the Harvard Business School and at Georgetown University’s graduate business school, and he advances the presentation and teaching crafts at the Corporate Executive Board through his leadership of the firm’s research and executive education communities. 

Mr. van Bever holds an undergraduate and master’s degree from the University of Delaware and received his MBA from Harvard University.  He and his wife, Ellen, have three children.

In addition, Mr. van Bever serves as a director on the boards of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, an undergraduate honors society and service organization, and the Firefly Children’s Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting at-risk orphans in Russia through advancement of a global standard of medical care for these children, as well as support for their deinstitutionalization.  He is a member of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., and of the Alexandria (Virginia) Community Trust.