Jeffrey R. Beard is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 manager

Management

Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...

. He was appointed to become director-general

Director-general

The term director-general is a title given the highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution.-European Union:...

 of the International Baccalaureate (IB), based in Geneva, Switzerland, starting on 1 January 2006, following the retirement of the previous director-general, George Walker

George Walker (professor)

Professor George Walker is a British educator, and the former director-general of the International Baccalaureate Organisation. He is also a productive author of articles and other works regarding international education and physical chemistry.Walker has studied chemistry at Oxford University, and...

.

Beard was born in Akron, Ohio

Akron, Ohio

Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...

, graduating in 1972 from the US Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

 degree

Academic degree

An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...

 in Analytical Management. He also holds an MBA from the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh and an MS from Iowa State University. Most recently, Beard worked as division president and chief operating officer

Chief operating officer

A Chief Operating Officer or Director of Operations can be one of the highest-ranking executives in an organization and comprises part of the "C-Suite"...

 Seeds for Syngenta AG, a Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 agribusiness

Agribusiness

In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term for the various businesses involved in food production, including farming and contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales....

 based in Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

. He has also served as an officer in the US Navy (Groton, CT; Brawdy, Wales, UK) and worked for Procter and Gamble (paper products: Mehoopany, PA; Green Bay, WI) and Pioneer Hi-Bred, Int'l (Johnston, IA, USA; Paris, France; Parndorf, Austria).