About Us

Galima (pronounced Gal-i-mu) means “it is possible!” in Lithuanian.

As the Marketing and Product Management Director for the first digital wireless service provider in Lithuania in the mid-90s, the Founder of The Galima Group had a lot of ideas about products, promotions, features, etc. Her proposals were often met by Engineering and Billing with “ne galima” or “it isn’t possible”. We believe that having the best Product Management processes and strategies and the latest Marketing knowledge, is what makes companies profitable and successful. We also believe that most things are possible.

The Galima team of industry professionals and UC Berkeley Faculty focuses on helping Product Management and Marketing professionals build profitable companies.

---

Team

Kim Fisher, Principal

Kim worked in marketing for many years before founding her own technology company and then helping others build their technology companies. Throughout her experience Kim has found that excellent marketing and sound product management processes are what make companies succeed. She has also often struggled to hire and train excellent Product Managers. She founded The Galima Group to help remedy this problem and to provide technology companies the training that can bring them to new levels of success and profitability.

Prior to the Galima Group, Ms. Fisher served as the CEO of the International Business Incubator, helping companies understand and successfully enter the US Market. She also served as Executive Director of The Women's Technology Cluster (WTC), the world's leading incubator for women-led companies, where she helped over 50 companies raise over $350 Million in Venture Capital and grow significant revenue. Prior to the WTC, Ms. Fisher was CEO and co-founder of AudioBasket, where she raised over $25 Million to build one of the first “podcasting” companies. She built innovative new products and formed partnerships with companies including Microsoft, AOL, Time Warner, and Deutsche Telekom. AudioBasket was acquired by EMotion.

Ms. Fisher worked previously for Motorola Ventures and was Marketing and Product Management Director for a wireless operator in Lithuania, where she grew revenue from 0 to $200,000,000. She has worked for a variety of other wireless telecommunication companies in Marketing and Strategic Planning capacities.

Ms. Fisher has a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of Business and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, Haas School of Business. As a leading female CEO, she has been featured in five books and has appeared on the cover of US News & World Report. She has also been awarded the Price Fellowship for Entrepreneurship, and has served on the Advisory Boards of the Haas School of Business, the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, and Nokia Innovent.

---

Tamar Lowell, Industry Expert

Tamar Lowell works as an advisor to Galima Group, bringing insight from her industry into the development of all Galima Group programs. Tamar has worked in Marketing and Product Management for fifteen years leading teams at companies including Rearden Commerce, Hotwire, Lonely Planet, and Travelocity. She is currently VP of Marketing and Sales at Access Trips, responsible for marketing, product management and pricing. Her expertise is in building online businesses through marketing, product strategy, and product management. In her roles, she has been responsible for the P&L of her products, managed complex cross-functional (and cross-border) teams, and successfully brought new products to market. Tamar has brought tangible results to all the products she has managed. At Lonely Planet, she increased ecommerce revenue by 46% by introducing new promotions, functionality, and product merchandising. She doubled revenue in her target area at Hotwire by negotiating new pricing programs, and she created two new online stores for Rearden Commerce that drove new customer acquisition worth over $200 million in customer spend. Tamar has an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and a BS in Mass Communications from University of Maryland.

---

John Schwab, Industry Expert

John Schwab was Product Manager for the fastest growing product in Applied Materials history, a complex multi-million dollar semi-conductor manufacturing tool. More recently, he served as Vice President of Product Strategy for AudioBasket, a software start-up focused on streaming and downloaded MP3 audio news delivery on PC’s, cell phones, and other portable devices. There, he hired and managed the product management team as the company grew from 5 to over 60 employees. John has conducted tops down and bottoms up market sizing studies using internal and secondary market research, and has designed and conducted primary research, including focus groups, surveys, and beta programs. At AudioBasket, John also conducted the strategic planning process, aligning organizational goals and employee focus, and was in charge of analysis of business development opportunities. John has an Industrial Engineering degree from the University of Tennessee and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, Haas School of Business.

---

Sara Beckman, Product Management Program Faculty Director, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

Sara Beckman teaches New Product Development and Manufacturing and Operations Management at the University of California’s Haas School of Business. In nearly fifteen years at the Haas School, she has developed, institutionalized and directed the school’s Management of Technology Program, initiated new courses on design, entrepreneurship in biotechnology, and new product development, won three awards from MBA students for excellence in teaching, and received the Berkeley campus Distinguished Teaching Award.

Sara Beckman has also taught for Stanford University’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, and been a visiting faculty member at MIT in both 1994 and 1999 where she taught in the Leaders for Manufacturing Program. She also teaches regularly in Pepperdine University’s Masters in Science and Technology Management program.

Prior to and concurrent with her involvement at the Haas School, Sara Beckman worked for the Hewlett-Packard Company, most recently as Director of the Product Generation Change Management Team. This group was responsible for supporting strategic decision-making, workforce planning and design, manufacturing education and training, and environmental, health and safety management throughout the company. She also managed the corporate-wide Surface Mount Technology program that was responsible for the rollout of new, standard board assembly processes at HP.

Before joining HP and the Haas School, Sara Beckman worked in the Operations Management Services practice at Booz, Allen and Hamilton where she developed manufacturing strategy in a number of diverse industries from pharmaceuticals to aerospace.

Sara Beckman has B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management at Stanford University and an M.S. in Statistics from the same institution. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Building Materials Holding Corporation and the Corporate Design Foundation.

---

Teck Ho, Pricing Program Faculty Director, Customer Value Management Faculty Director, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

Teck Ho is the William Halford, Jr. Family Professor of Marketing at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the chairman of the marketing group and the associate dean of academic affairs from 2004 to 2006. Prior to his position at Berkeley, Teck held academic positions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Anderson School of UCLA. Teck earned his PhD and MA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, he received his MSc and B. Eng (first-class honors) from the National University of Singapore. Teck's professional leadership includes roles as Associate Editor of Management Science and Journal of Marketing Research and Editorial Board member of Marketing Science, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, and Quantitative Marketing and Economics. His most recent consulting service has been in the area of pricing, customer value analysis, and market research for eBay, Autodesk, HP, Boston Scientific, Martek, INTEL, and Campbell Soups. Current research areas include design of pricing contracts, customer value management, strategic intelligence, marketing/manufacturing coordination, and retail management.

Teck has published extensively in various areas of marketing and technology management and has been awarded multiple research grants by National Science Foundation for his innovative research in competitive strategy. He won the Deloitte and Touche Best Advisor Award for Management Field Study at UCLA in 1996 and was the finalist for the Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Teaching Award at Wharton in 2000. He won the Best Teacher of the Year Award three years in a row at Berkeley from 2004 to 2006.

---

Priya Raghubir, Market Research Program Faculty Director, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

Priya Raghubir is a Professor at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. in Marketing from New York University in 1994. An MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India (1985), her undergraduate degree is in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, India (1983). Prior to doing her PhD, Priya worked in the financial industry in Hong Kong (with Jardine Fleming and Citibank) and India (with Citibank) for 5 years, from 1985-1990. She taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong from 1994-1997. Her research interests are in the areas of survey methods, specifically questionnaire design and experimental methods, as well as psychological aspects of price promotions, visual information processing, and the subjective value of money. Priya has also done Marketing Research courses for Google as well and consulted in Marketing Research for Boston Scientific.

She has published almost 30 articles in major journals including the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Marketing Science, California Management Review, Memory and Cognition, Journal of Retailing, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Product and Brand Managements, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Financial Analysts Journal, Psychology and Marketing, and Marketing Letters. She is on four Editorial Boards of major Marketing journals. She has given almost 90 academic presentations of her research work at major universities, symposia, and conferences around the world. Her teaching interests are in the area of Marketing Research, Consumer Behavior, and Marketing Strategy. She has taught at the undergraduate, MBA, evening MBA, and PhD levels at the Haas School of Business, as well as done executive education in India and China.

---

Holly Schroth, Negotiation Program Faculty Director, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

Holly is an award winning Senior Lecturer at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the MBA program at Santa Clara University. She teaches Negotiations and Conflict Resolution and Organizational Behavior to Executives, MBAs and Undergraduates. She has won several awards from MBA students for teaching excellence and was most recently voted “favorite professor” by a BusinessWeekonline (Sept. 2006) poll of undergraduates across the United States.

Holly teaches leadership issues to a variety of organizations in the United States and abroad including: Google, Intel, Youtube, AMD, Kaiser Permanente, T-Mobile, The GAP, Erste Bank, Silicon Graphics, Lockheed-Martin, Charles Schwab, Universal Studios, TRW Credit Service, Xerox, Applied Materials, Zhanra.com, KIPP, Altera Corp., Pulte Homes, Deloitte Consulting, Jacobs Associates, Law Offices of Crosby, Heafey, Roach and May, Council of Law Librarians, Murphy Companies, Glenborough Corporation, CIO Institute, American Electronics Association, Women in Business Society, WineRepublic.com, Staples, Conceptus, Cruelworld.com, Careercentral.com, Walmart.com, Women’s Wealth Network, Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood LLP, Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission, SNP Communications, Partners in Business Systems, CREW, National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) and other government entities.

She has published several articles on negotiation and procedural justice in leading journals and has created several negotiation exercises in collaboration with the Dispute Resolution Research Center at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Holly is one of the leading authors of negotiation exercise materials which are used worldwide by educators and trainers.

Prior to joining the faculty at the Haas School of Business in 1992, Holly was a visiting scholar at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. She received a MA in psychology and a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.