Graber Associates LLC was founded in 2002 to bring expertise in banking and technology to businesses. Our team consists of former bankers, technicians, reporters, analysts, and professors. Since then we have expanded our scope to encompass the closely complementary disciplines of public relations, marketing, and research.

In financial services, we're well acquainted with cash management, payments, application marketing, product development and launches, deposit operations, and vendor selection. We've managed retail bank branches, made commercial and industrial loans, and directed credit analyses and portfolio reviews.

Our technology background is just as broad with years at IBM, Digital Equipment, Wang Global, Getronics, and Top Layer.

We have created, managed, and guided small businesses through good times and bad.

In communications, we've been responsible for press, analyst, and investor relations; employee and executive communications programs; and branding and marketing communication strategy and tactics.

We haven't done it all - nobody has. But give us a call. Let's see if we can help you!

Our Team

Ray Graber
RAY GRABER
President & Founder

Ray Graber has a deep and thorough understanding of banking, technology, and finance.

His business experience includes:

  • Banking technology research and consulting at TowerGroup
  • Marketing worldwide financial software applications for Digital Equipment Corporation
  • Best practices Internet security, policies, and procedures at FleetBoston Financial
  • Wire transfer operations and product launches at Citibank and BankBoston
  • Treasury operations for a $325 million public company

Ray was an adjunct professor at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College where he taught several graduate-level courses: the Financial Management of Commercial Banks, E-Banking, the MBA Leadership Course, and Corporate Finance as well as Working Capital Management and Cash Management at the Bentley College Graduate Business Program. He also taught several undergraduate courses at both schools.

Ray holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics and an MBA in Finance and MIS, both from Boston College.

Tom Burke
THOMAS BURKE
Vice President, Public Relations Practice

Tom is a veteran corporate communications practitioner, writer, and editor which includes extensive stints in high tech, commercial banking, higher education/nonprofit, and sports writing and broadcasting.

He has directed the full menu of marketing communications and has managed internal and external affairs for multinational organizations and startup firms in the technology sector. He has also written a number of white papers, bylined articles, and shareholder communications and presentations.

Tom’s business experience includes organizing and directing the worldwide internal communications network at Wang Global; overseeing all communications including press, marketing, and analyst relations for Getronics North America after its acquisition of Wang Global; and directing public, investor, and analyst relations for Top Layer Networks, a venture-funded network security device manufacturer.

At Bank of New England and Fleet, Tom was a commercial/industrial lender to entrepreneurial companies, manager of a large retail branch in Boston, and vice president of credit analysis and loan review. He also wrote and edited Shawmut News for Shawmut Bank and earned a Bell Ringer Award for the best employee publication in New England.

He also served as an instructor on banking and credit to clients and trainees. Tom has also served as a professional fundraiser for Boston College and Children’s Hospital. A past president of the Gridiron Club of Greater Boston, he has written and edited hundreds of sports-related articles, and has served as a public address announcer and radio broadcaster in college football and hockey. His by-line has appeared in the New York Times and the Boston Globe.

Tom holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Business Administration in Finance, both from Boston College.

Carole Inferrera


CAROLE INFERRERA
Vice President, Small Business Services

Carole joined the Graber Associates team in 2007. She has a wealth of entrepreneurial business experience, including virtually all aspects of day-to-day operations, as well as consulting and training of executives and research professionals.

Involved throughout the years in many business startups, Carole has a burning passion to assist small businesses achieve their goals and be successful.

She has served in positions from head of business development, business manager, CEO of an e-commerce retail store, to being the founder/owner of her own successful infants and children’s accessory manufacturing operation.

Over the span of ten years, Carole was a senior member of the team for TechMark, a proprietary training program that enables corporate leaders and R&D specialists to understand the system-wide impact of their decisions. Overseeing the program’s technical and procedural aspects, she guided participants through simulation modules that encompassed accounting, finance, marketing, manufacturing, organizational behavior, team development, and systems.

Carole received her Bachelor of Science in clothing and textiles from Framingham State College and holds an MBA from the prestigious F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College.

Carole taught business classes at Lasell College.

Ed Jackson
ED JACKSON
Vice President, European Operations

Ed is a Business Consultant with special responsibilities for International Business Markets. Ed has over 40 years’ experience in the IT industry, having worked at senior level with major companies in that industry in the international arena. He has implemented many successful programs in the United States, the United Kingdom, across Western Europe, Central Europe and the Far East.

He has spent the most part of his career remodeling programs developed one side of “the pond” for implementation on the other, and he is no stranger to the task of bridging the gulf between various cultures. Ed’s competence and experience runs across almost the entire marketing spectrum, from intelligence gathering and analysis through to strategic planning and the organization, development and implementation of sales promotion campaigns.

In addition, he has extensive experience in conducting public relations events, organizing press campaigns, liaising with government and professional institutions, running seminars, and chairing conferences. During his career Ed has developed multi-lingual campaigns for implementation across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He worked with representatives of the IMF to produce a set of Russian language banking product literature to aid the restructuring of the financial services sector throughout Russia and the “’Stans” following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the opening up of the markets of Central Europe.

Ed’s career takes in experience with a whole raft of blue chip companies including RCA, GEC, Varian Data Machines, Sperry, Unisys, and Wang Global. Ed can be reached on +44 193 278 5529 or +44 783 667 5707 (cell) in addition to the main Graber Associates switchboard, +1 (781) 221-0018.

Christine Willis
Christine Willis
Vice President, Research

Ms. Willis is responsible for researching financial technology vendors and markets, ensuring that data compiled on them are accurate, presentable, and actionable for Graber Associates’ clients.

In her previous position at Capachin Research, Christine specialized in financial services companies. As a consultant with Ava Anderson Non Toxic, she concentrated on personal care products, chemical compositions, endocrinology, and legislative issues of concern to consumer-product companies like Unilever and P&G.

Christine has also undertaken research projects at the nexus of history and political science. Her subjects have included the first Bank of America under the leadership of President John Tyler, the fall of the American Whig party, and Vietnamese-Chinese relations during the Vietnam War. She is now working on original research about the emergence of the nations in Southeast Asia.

In addition to her work at Graber Associates, Ms. Willis taught English as a second language at the Benjamarachutit Ratchaburi Secondary School in Thailand. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education from Bridgewater State College and is conversational in Thai and Japanese.