Strategy: The Basics of Becoming Competitive

Cheryl Van Deusen is a professor of strategic and international business at the COGGIN College of Business, University of North Florida.  She earned her Ph.D. in strategic management and international business from the University of South Carolina, a MBA from Appalachian State University with an emphasis in Human Resources and her B.S. from Virginia Tech.  Her primary teaching areas include business strategy and international management, but she also teaches human resource management classes such as employee benefits planning, compensation, and international HR.  Current research streams include cross-cultural management, organizational culture and learning, in addition to mergers and acuisitions.  Cheryl joined the COGGIN College of Business in 1998.  Prior to earning a Ph.D., she worked in the hospitality industry for almost ten years working her way up to become a resort General Manager. She was the corporate quality assurance director for a publicly traded company operating resorts in 11 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  With over 4,000 employees, she was responsible for implementing a corporate wide quality and training program, developing job descriptions, specifications and performance appraisal systems.  The ultimate deliverable was to develop an affordable, competitive compensation system. 

Most of Cheryl’s consulting activities have been with senior level managers implementing organizational change.  To date, she has consulted both domestically and internationally in seven countries, primarily in the South Pacific region.  A group of academicians established a non-profit foundation where they work with the CEOs and COOs of major organizations trying to improve their overall effectiveness to encompass organizational change efforts in governmental and private organizations.  Firms facing downsizing, privatization, out sourcing and small business start-ups in both union and non-unionized environments are typical examples.  Organizational learning and acquisition integration are also key areas. 

When she is not teaching or consulting, she competes internationally on Arabian endurance horses in 50, 75, and 100-mile races.  Cheryl was on the 2018 Team USA at the World Equestrian Games.  Cheryl works with a group to develop the young riders ages 14-21 in these global competitions and she and USA SE were very proud to have three of the five young riders representing Team USA at the 2019 World Young Rider Championships in Italy in from our southeast young riders after 4 of the 5 young riders were from the SE at the 2017 World YR Endurance Championships in Chile.  These high level competitions are nothing more than strategy in action.