Richard Drobnick is the director of the USC Marshall School’s IBEAR MBA program. He is also the founding director of the School’s Center for International Business, which has been supported by the U.S. Department of Education since 1990, as one of its 33 national resource centers on international business. From 1994 to 2005, he served as USC's inaugural Vice Provost for International Affairs. He was the inaugural Secretary General and a member of the Steering Committee of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), an association of presidents of 45 leading Pacific Rim research universities (www.apru.org). He launched and led APRU's Pacific Rim research programs on "Sustainability and Climate Change" and "Public Health.” Presently, he serves as a Senior Strategic Advisor to APRU on its "Sustainability and Climate Change" and "Global Public Health" activities.

Drobnick specializes in Pacific Rim economic and business issues and U.S. and Pacific Rim trade policies. He is the author of numerous articles regarding international economics and business, as well as the co-author of Neither Feast nor Famine: Food Conditions to the Year 2000 and co-editor of Small Firms in Global Competition. He is a member of the U.S. Asia Pacific Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Asia Society of Southern California’s Executive Committee, and is a director of the Japan-America Society-Southern California. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia (1967-69), Drobnick served as an economic advisor to the Malaysian Department of Agriculture’s Farmers Association Movement.