The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) has announced that Michael P. Niemira will be joining ICSC as Chief Economist and Director of Research, effective Monday, December 15, 2003. As Chief Economist and Director of Research, Mr. Niemira will be responsible for the overall design, implementation and dissemination of all research projects undertaken worldwide by the ICSC and will guide the association's forecasting activities.
These projects are considered to be at the forefront of the recognized research in the field. He will also oversee the collection and maintenance of the ICSC Library, which is the main statistical database for the industry and the largest collection of shopping center-related materials in the world. He will also act as an industry spokesperson.
Most recently, Mr. Niemira was the Vice President and Senior Economist for the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (BTM) in New York, where he worked in the Research Department and produced the BTM-UBSW Weekly Chain Store Sales Snapshot, a retail sales monitor, as well as a monthly report, Retail Trends. Prior to BTM, he worked for PaineWebber, Chemical Bank and Merrill Lynch. Over the years, he was an adjunct instructor at New York University's Stern Graduate School of Business and at the New York Institute of Finance. Mr. Niemira has also co-authored two books: Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles, (John Wiley & Sons, 1994), and Trading the Fundamentals, Revised Edition, (McGraw Hill 1998). Additionally, he has contributed to numerous articles to books, journals and magazines, including writing a monthly magazine column about consumers for Chain Store Age. Mr. Niemira is on advisory panels for the Conference Board and the Institute for Supply Management. He has also received the A.G. Abramson Award from the National Association for Business Economics and was awarded honorary faculty membership by St. John's University, chapter of Omicron Delta Epsilon.
In making the announcement, ICSC President and CEO Michael P. Kercheval said, “I am pleased and excited that Michael Niemira will be joining ICSC. Michael is well-known to our membership. He has served on the ICSC Research Task Force and has been a guest lecturer at many of our meetings. Michael is widely recognized as one of our nation's premiere economists and his retail knowledge and experience will benefit ICSC's membership throughout the world.”
Mr. Niemira completed his undergraduate studies at Seton Hall University and his graduate studies at Rutgers University.
