The Team

Ricardo Sison graduated "Summa Cum Laude" and is a CPA by profession. He holds two graduate degrees. He received his MBA from the Ateneo de Manila University and pursued postgraduate studies and earned an MA in International Relations and International Business at San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley. As part of his passion for continuing education, Ricardo attended several Senior Management and Marketing Executive programs at the Harvard Business School. Moreover, he took special studies in Buying and Negotiations at IGDS (Intercontinental Group of Department Stores) in Zurich, Switzerland and Harvard Law School's PON (Program on Negotiations).

Still on the academic front, Ricardo gave special lectures in INSEAD, Europe Campus in Fontainebleau, France as a visiting scholar and exchange professor from the Ateneo de Manila University. Ricardo's style of teaching follows heavily the "Case Method" of management instruction developed by the Harvard Business School. He believes that the best way to learn a skill is to practice in a simulation-type process. Ricardo attended recently the Art and Craft of Discussion Leadership at the Harvard Business School where he mastered the "Case Method" of Learning Instruction. Participants in this program were educators and professors from Harvard, MIT, Yale, UCLA, and Columbia University.

Ricardo began his 10-year international career as the division manager and director for commercial operations at the International Duty Free Shops, based in Morocco with buying offices in Paris, Milan and New York. In this capacity, he acted as a buyer and worked in commercial relations with the luxury goods and fashion giants like Gianni Versace, Salvatore Ferragamo, Lacoste, Christian Dior of the LVMH Group, Nino Cerruti, and Cartier of the Richemont Group.

In 2000, Ricardo was responsible for the thought-to-finish project of building a Style de Vie: a Neiman Marcus-Sephora concept department store in the financial district and high-end commercial center of Casablanca, Morocco. Significant to his career as the head of this project was the signing of exclusive commercial contracts with Chanel and Cartier for the whole of North Africa. This was the first time Chanel and Cartier opened sales points in the domestic market in this part of the globe.

At the Academy, Ricardo teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in Principles of Buying 1 & 2, Merchandising Promotional Strategies, International Retailing and Global Marketing, Product Sales and Promotions, Consumer Behavior in Fashion, Retail Management and HR Management and E Commerce. As a seasoned professional in the retail and luxury goods industry, Ricardo provides one-on-one and group directed-study instruction to MFA students in the areas of financial planning, marketing research and international global marketing. Significant to the academic community in the Academy of Art University, Ricardo has written original online courses over the past two years including Principles of Buying 1 and 2, Principles of Marketing, and International Retailing and Global Marketing.

Aside from teaching, Ricardo acts as a marketing consultant to specialty retail stores in San Francisco and to a Land Development Corp, with business interests in St. Helena, Napa Valley and Beijing. Ricardo founded a key social networking platform that marries both the academic and real world of marketing. He created SANFRANGO.com to bring students and industry’s best and brightest around a 21st century table of ideas.

Ricardo is originally from Manila, Philippines, and moved to Mountain View, California, in 2001.