Managing Principal and CEO
Terrence Barber leads Tenso Barterre Group as Managing Principal and CEO. A Harvard MBA, Terrence brings over twenty years of senior executive experience in the U.S. and abroad in higher education, finance, consumer, agribusiness and high tech sectors. As international financier, market strategist, COO, CEO, U.S. Presidential appointee and senior U.S. diplomat, he has empowered top decision-makers and firms to compete successfully in key markets overseas. Clients have included colleges and universities, top firms in pharmaceutical, agriceutical, IT/telecom, and consumer sectors as well as supranational, national, and local public policy leaders, including the World Economic Forum. Examples of his senior leadership experience in marketing, high technology finance, and executive operations include:
International Market Development
Terrence led water remediation and other environmental technology trade missions in China, Korea and Japan, as the Governor’s Representative and Managing Director of Asia for the California State Offices of International Trade and Investment based in Tokyo. He directed California State Offices throughout the Asia/Indo-Pacific region in Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Shanghai/Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore. He drove trade and investment transactions in healthcare, environmental, food/agriculture, and IT/Telecom in high growth markets throughout Asia.
Terrence served as the Chief Marketing Officer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Japan, then America’s largest overseas market, as Executive Director and Senior Foreign Service Officer by special appointment by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. He served on the Ambassador’s senior country team, directing trade offices in Tokyo and Osaka, managing a $20 million USDA Foreign Agricultural Service marketing budget, financing operations of sixty industry trade groups and various U.S. states, promoting U.S.-Japan strategic alliances. He drove a nearly 10% annual growth rate for value-added exports in America’s largest market turning around a flat presence in a depressed market.
Terrence led comprehensive strategic and financial re-engineering of USDA’s commercial diplomacy agency, as Senior Director of Strategic Operations and U.S. Presidential appointee at the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service. He institutionalized cutting-edge private sector performance measures and strategy processes, pioneering “environmental sustainability” as a core element of the agency mission and accountability. He directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s first Long-term Agricultural Trade Strategy, guiding $100+ million in direct private sector funding and a $5 billion contingent finance facility, earning USDA’s highest accolade, the Secretary’s Honor Award for Excellence, overseeing three divisions of market strategists, economists, compliance experts and commercial diplomats.
High Technology Finance
Terrence directed the U.S. strategic alliance and M&A consulting arm of the top Japanese financial institution as Vice President and Manager of M&A Strategy Services. He led creation of breakthrough growth opportunities for U.S. enterprises to access the lucrative Japan consumer market.
He directed strategy services driving successful investments in leading edge technology firms, including biotechnology, on behalf of leading manufacturers and financial institutions worldwide, including DuPont Agrichemicals, Cargill, Volvo/Provendor Group, and leading Asian food and pharmaceutical firms, as Senior Financial Engineer at the premier U.S. agribusiness consulting firm, affiliated with Harvard Business School and the Central Agricultural Banks of Europe.
He designed and negotiated cross-border strategic investments, alliances and market strategies involving environmental and biotechnology firms, top food processors, leading consumer water/beverage firms (such as Crystal Geyser Water, Coca-Cola, Ocean Spray, Kirin, top wineries and others), major hospitality firms (including Marriott), and global pharmaceutical enterprises, on behalf of top U.S., Asian and European investors and industry counterparts in the course of over twenty years of senior leadership experience.
Executive Operations
Terrence provided shareholders with targeted high liquidity event by successfully repositioning a commodity food/feed ingredients manufacturer into a high tech agriceuticals producer, as CEO and Board Director.
He oversaw strategic alliances, marketing, resource allocation, performance measurement, legal, personnel, facilities and operations of all overseas program delivery, as Vice President of International Operations of a leading U.S. graduate university. He expanded program delivery in Southeast Asia, China, Middle East and Latin America and established new Asia hub campus with state-of-the-art distance education technologies in Tokyo with publicly traded educational services partner capitalized at $1+ billion.
He directed executive operations of U.S. and international public and private sector enterprises engaged in investment banking, market development and strategy consulting.
Personal
Born in Japan, raised in Tokyo and California, a senior executive in international business for over twenty years, Terrence is renowned for cross-cultural strategic acumen. In language proficiency, he surpasses US diplomatic standards for Japanese language fluency and is conversational in German. He taught ESL for the Royal Thai Air Force in Bangkok as an undergraduate at Harvard. He began his career as an IBM representative to the Boston hospital sector after graduating. As wood flutist, poet and student of Asian spirituality, Terrence lifts spirits, builds consensus, bridges gender and culture, transforming organizational inertia into strategic momentum. He is a proud father of two sons, one a PhD nanochemistry postgraduate at Harvard and one a wildlife ecology undergraduate and research assistant in the American desert and Andean rainforest.
Managing Director
Karen Halliburton serves as Managing Director of Tenso Barterre Group, applying her expertise in business diplomacy and strategic marketing management. Her projects have addressed key markets including Japan, China, and Africa, in collaboration with the Group’s global network of thought leaders, policy innovators and technology entrepreneurs. Among other assignments, Karen has served as Senior Vice President of Global Strategic Operations of RiceX, now NutraCea, a U.S. food, nutraceutical and equine feed manufacturer providing health and nutrition solutions derived from rice bran addressing global challenges including world hunger and diabetes.
Prior to joining Tenso Barterre Group, as a ten-year veteran of the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service based in Washington, DC, she served as an agricultural economist, senior market strategist and commercial diplomat posted for four years in Japan. Proficient in Japanese, Karen served as Deputy Director of the United States Agricultural Trade Office (ATO) in Tokyo, attached to the American Embassy. As U.S. diplomat and chief operating officer of ATO Tokyo, she directed market development efforts for American value-added and high value food and beverage exports to Japan, the largest U.S. export market. Managing multi-million dollar administrative and marketing budgets, she directed commercial trade operations comprising cross-border corporate alliances, diplomatic and market relations, and market strategy reporting.
The Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs (now Mansfield Foundation) awarded her the coveted Mansfield Fellowship representing USDA as one of only seven federal officials from agencies across the federal government selected in a nationwide competition to work towards enhancing the long-term strategic and commercial collaboration between the United States and Japan. Karen pioneered as the first U.S. federal official to work within the senior ranks of the Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries which controls Japan’s food sector. As a Mansfield Fellow, she worked closely with executive management of Japan’s top retailer, Seiyu, and of its parent, Saison Group, the leading retail, foodservice, and hospitality conglomerate.
In Washington DC, she served as the Project Coordinator for the inaugural USDA Long-term Agricultural Trade Strategy mandated by Congress, which earned her team USDA’s highest honor, the Secretary’s Honor Award for Excellence. As a lead analyst of global markets for U.S. consumer foods, she coordinated market intelligence communications to top U.S. industry and government decision-makers nationwide. She also served as the principal Asia-Pacific policy and market analysis industry liaison for the processed foods sector. Karen is a graduate of Oklahoma State University with a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics and bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Political Science, specializing in International Public Administration.