PULLMAN, Wash. — The managing director of world trade for McDonaldÃs Corp., Ray Cesca, will spend two days at Washington State University this week to discuss “McDonald’s Key to Global Success” with students and faculty.
His public address by that title is set for 4:15 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, in Room 216 of Todd Hall. A reception will follow.
Cesca is a leader and participant in numerous international food and agricultural committees. He was invited to WSU by Robert Harder, a professor in education and coordinator of the Pacific Rim Network in WSU’s International Programs. Harder sits with Cesca on the Pacific Basin Economics Council. PBEC is an organization with members from 20 countries supporting an open food system in the Pacific and providing business input to Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders. Cesca chairs the PBEC Food Products Committee.
Also on that committee is WSU Professor Tom Wahl, interim director of the WSU APEC Study Center for Food Systems, who will meet with Cesca during his visit to campus. The McDonald’s executive will also meet with WSU faculty from the colleges of Business and Economics and Agriculture and Home Economics — specifically, from IMPACT (the International Marketing Program for Agricultural, Commodities, and Trade), Precision Farming, Hotel & Restaurant Administration, International Business and the International Business Institute.
“We’re happy to have a person of Ray Cesca’s stature visit campus and share his international expertise and knowledge on food and agriculture — and on the success of McDonald’s internationally — with students and guests at WSU,” says Harder.
“Ray Cesca impressed me greatly when I met him earlier this year in Santiago, Chile, at a PBEC meeting,” says Jim McCullough, director of the International Business Institute at WSU. “He’s sincerely interested in working with educational institutions and has been a very active participant in promoting corporate involvement in the international educational process. We’re really lucky to have him here.”
As managing director of McDonald’s World Trade since 1995, Cesca is responsible for leveraging the system assets in the 111 countries where McDonald’s operates. He helps craft world trade strategies that are used in merging world trading blocks and negotiates with governments to make a borderless environment with the McDonald’s system. He’s also responsible for New Country Development for McDonald’s.
He serves on the Executive Committee of the Food and Agriculture Committee for the National Policy Association and is a charter member of the Trade, Development and Global Issues Sub-Committee. He’s active in New America Realities, a leading-edge technology committee; a leader in the U.S. Asian Council, which promotes improved U.S. relations with Southeast Asia; a creator of a high-level agricultural policy working group in the United States Council for International Business; and a board member of the U.S.-India Commercial Alliance. He is the recipient of the Corporate Conservation Leadership Award for his ongoing efforts in the Amisconde Initiative, a binational sustainable development conservation project in Central America.
Cesca’s MBA degree is from Columbia University, and his B.S. degree is from St. Bonaventure University.
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