John W. Henke, Jr., Ph.D.

John W. Henke, Jr., Ph.D.
John W. Henke Jr. is President of Planning Perspectives. He is also a Professor of Marketing in the School of Business Administration at Oakland University (Rochester, MI) where he teaches business-to-business marketing, sales, and sales management at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Prior to joining the academic community he held sales and marketing management positions during a 15 year period with several firms, including IBM Corporation, Data Processing Division. While at IBM he won several outstanding salesman awards.

Prof. Henke has given numerous presentations in the United States and Europe on a broad range of business-to-business marketing and purchasg-related topics. His papers have been published in a variety of journals, including the Sloan Management Review, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of Business Strategy, Business Horizons, Systemica, Systems Research, and the International Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management.

His degrees include a B.A. (physics) from Eastern Michigan University, a M.S. (radiological physics) from Cornell University, and a M.B.A. (Advanced Management Program), and Ph.D. (marketing) from Michigan State University. While at Cornell he was the recipient of a Sloan-Kettering Fellowship.

B. Vera Ruseckas
B. Vera Ruseckas is Vice-President of Planning Perspectives.  Prior to joining PPI, Ms. Ruseckas gained over 30 years experience of working in a variety of positions at Ford Motor Company and Visteon Corporation. In her last position as Director of Global Operations for the Service Parts Business Group at Visteon she was responsible for a diverse set of activities dealing with OEM service parts and aftermarket parts, including planning and coordinating the service part requirements for new OEM product launches, co-developing a manufacturing past-model service of part strategy, and providing order-to-delivery support for Visteon’s service parts and aftermarket business customers. She was also a key member of the team that oversaw the development of the Visteon Business Operating System which established the manner by which Visteon operates from a policy, process, and internal relationship perspective. Ms. Ruseckas also served on a number of Visteon corporate committees, each of which tended to focus on integrating processes, people, and technology.

Prior to Visteon, Ms. Ruseckas held a variety of positions across a broad range of functions at Ford Motor Company, including positions in Information Technology, and strategy and management positions in Ford’s Customer and Business Support Centers, Fleet vehicle order forecasting, and vehicle order-to-delivery support. Since 1995, Ms. Ruseckas has served as an informal advisor to PPI on a variety of projects.

Ms. Ruseckas has a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and an MBA from Wayne State University.

Robert J. Ahrens
Robert J. Ahrens is a Senior Consultant at PPI. He brings a broad and rich background in global market research and marketing from his extensive corporate experience. Through a wide array of reseach and marketing-related assignments over a 30 year business career, he has developed a deep understanding of market research and its application to marketing issues. He has been involved in market reseach activities in a variety of marketing positions, including marketing management, marketing strategy, business planning, joint ventures, new product development, sales promotion and training, and market intelligence for both whole goods and aftermarket parts.

He has worked on the corporate staffs and at the operating levels of Caterpillar, Cummins, Colt Industries, Ford Motor, and Visteon Corporation. Mr. Ahrens’ last responsibilities, before joining PPI in 1998, included managing custom research for advanced vehicles at Ford’s Market Research Office, and revitalizing and building the market research area at Visteon.

He received a B.A. in marketing from Michigan State University and has completed M.A. studies at New York University.

Huiqun Xu
Huiqun Xu is the research analyst of Planning Perspectives. Prior to joining PPI, she had a statistical analyst position at the Research Center of William Beaumont Hospital.

She is experienced at building and manipulating databases, providing analytic support, data analysis, and helping creating reports of detailed findings. She also creates and manages online surveys, as well as collects the survey data for analysis to better understand the working relationship between manufacturer and their suppliers. Meanwhile, she assists in projects in the academic field with faculties in marketing research.

Her software expertise: SPSS, SAS, Excel, AMOS, SQL.

Her educational background includes a B.A. (Mathematics) from Zhejiang University, a M.A. (Database Management, Computer Science) and a M.S. (Statistics) from Wayne State University.

Chun Zhang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Marketing
School of Business Administration
University of Vermont, Burlington, VT USA

Chun Zhang is on the marketing faculty of the School of Business Administration at the university of Vermont where she teaches undergraduate marketing and international business courses. She has published a number of publications in leading international business journals, including the Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Marketing, Journal of World Business, and International Marketing Review. Professor’s Zhang’s expertise is in the management of supply chain and marketing channel relationships and has worked in collaboration with scholars at a number of institutions. As a result of her expertise and research interest, she has received three research grants from the MIT International Motor Vehicle Program. She is a member of the American Marketing Association, Academy of Marketing Science, and Academy of International Business.

Her industry experience includes being a statistical analyst for Kraft Foods and working for the Euro-Asia Flower Trade Corporation, Beijing.

Her educational background includes being designated the Annual Albert Haring Symposium Fellow at Indiana University in April 2003. She received her Ph.D. in marketing from Michigan State University with a minor in international business.

Sengun (Shen) Yeniyurt, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Marketing
College of Business Administration
University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA.

Sengun Yeniyurt is on the marketing faculty of the College of Business Administration at University of Nevada (Reno, NV), where he teaches undergraduate and graduate marketing courses. His current research interests include marketing strategy and econometric modeling. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Product and Innovation Management, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of International Marketing, International Marketing Review, and International Business Review. He has given numerous presentations at national and international conferences, where several of his papers were recognized as award winning articles. Professor Yeniyurt has received automotive industry research grants from the MIT International Motor Vehicle Program. He is a member of the American Marketing Association, Academy of International Business, and INFORMS.

His educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, a MBA from Bogazici University, and a Ph.D. in Marketing and International Business from Michigan State University.

Heather Hansma
Heather Hansma is PPI’s graphic designer. She graduated from the College for Creative Studies (Detroit, MI) with a BFA in Illustration. Ms. Hansma uses her background in the arts to present data to our clients in an easy-to-read and aesthetically pleasing manner. Outside of PPI, she is a working freelance illustrator and gallery artist.

Amy Claeys
Amy Claeys is PPI’s office manager.  Amy joined Planning Perspectives in 2006, and manages inventory, accounts payable as well as any miscellaneous office needs. Amy has nearly ten years experience as an office manager.