Robert Massimi, CEO of RM Global Advisors and a drama critic based in Saddle River, New Jersey, has built a career defined by parallel commitments — one rooted in commerce, the other in culture.
A Man of Two Worlds
Most careers settle into a single lane. They find a groove, and they stay in it. Robert Massimi’s has not. For more than four decades, the Saddle River, New Jersey native has operated in two distinct but deeply connected worlds: the boardroom and the theater. He is the CEO of RM Global Advisors, an international advisory firm. He is also a working drama critic, a Broadway producer, and one of the more consistent voices covering New York theater. These two tracks have not run in parallel by accident. They have been sustained by the same quality: a willingness to follow through on what he starts.
Upper Saddle River, then Manhattan
Massimi grew up in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, raised by Frederick and Amelia Massimi, whose careers spanned textiles and transportation. He was an athlete first. He played soccer, hockey, baseball, and golf, and the awards followed. In hockey, he earned All-County, All-State, and All-American recognition. He set a school record for goals in soccer and held a middle school track record in the mile.
Sports, for Massimi, were not a detour from education. They ran alongside it. At Manhattan College, he pursued a triple major in English, Government, and Psychology, with a minor in business. He wrote for the school newspaper. He was named the most outstanding student at graduation and was a valedictorian nominee. He later earned MBAs from NYU and Yale University. His membership in Alpha Sigma Lambda, an academic honor society recognizing excellence in English and science, reflected the range of his intellectual interests—a range that would define his career.
The Transportation Years
After college, Massimi entered the family transportation business, the industry his parents had known. In 1987, he purchased B&B Transport, a decision that gave him direct operational leadership for the first time. Running a transportation company meant understanding how systems connect: how goods move, how logistics work, how industries depend on each other in ways that are not visible on the surface.
He operated in freight brokerage from 2005 through 2024, staying close to global trade and supply chains across nearly two decades. The work was operational and relational. It required reading markets and managing complexity. It also provided a long view of how commerce moves across borders—experience that would later inform the work at RM Global Advisors.
Essex-Morgan and the Question of Risk
Between his transportation work, Massimi founded Essex-Morgan LLC, a hedge fund that operated from 1997 to 2001. The fund reflected the same instinct that had driven his earlier decisions: find an opportunity, build it, and commit to it fully. Essex-Morgan was active and, in his own assessment, successful during its operating years. It closed in 2001.
Massimi does not lean on Wall Street as a defining chapter. His trajectory moved forward. The transportation and logistics work that followed was quieter work, closer to the operational ground level. It suited him.
RM Global Advisors
In 2024, Massimi shifted from freight brokerage into international advisory work, founding RM Global Advisors. The move was a logical extension of decades of cross-border experience. His advisory focus centers on global strategy and international business relationships—the connective tissue of commerce that he had observed through transportation and logistics for years.
The firm reflects where his career has arrived: a position of perspective. Not managing one piece of a supply chain, but looking at how pieces connect across markets and geographies.
Forty Years Behind a Critic’s Pen
Alongside every chapter of his business career, Massimi has written about theater. He began covering the stage in 1982 and has not stopped. He serves as Chief Drama Critic for Metropolitan Magazine, Nimbus Magazine, and My Life Publications, three outlets that have given his theater voice consistent platforms over the years.
His criticism is grounded in exposure. He has seen more than 700 shows. That depth of experience gives his writing a reference frame that extends beyond any single production or season. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild, The Drama League, and the English Speaking Union, institutional affiliations that place him squarely within the professional theater community.
His involvement in theater has not been limited to criticism. He has produced 14 shows on and off Broadway. One of those productions is documented in the IBDB record for The Gathering, a Broadway production. Another is associated with the Charles Busch production Swingtime Canteen. Producing requires a different set of skills than writing about a production. It requires judgment about what to back, and it requires follow-through once that commitment is made.
Board Service and Institutional Commitment
Over the decades, Massimi has served on the boards of organizations that reflect the institutions he values. He served on the board of the Metropolitan Playhouse for approximately ten years during the 1990s. He has served on the boards of St. Joseph Regional High School, Zion Lutheran Church, and Wandell School in Saddle River. He also sits on the board of Manhattan College, his undergraduate alma mater.
This pattern of board service is not incidental. It reflects an orientation toward the places and institutions that have shaped him, from the school that gave him his early education to the arts organization that shaped his understanding of theater in New York.
The Logic of Robert Massimi
What makes Robert Massimi’s career coherent is not the industries he has moved through. It is the way he moves through them. He does not sample. He commits. He began writing theater criticism in 1982 and is still writing it. He took on operational leadership in transportation in 1987 and stayed in that world for decades. He has produced 14 shows over a career that spans multiple professional identities.
The dual track—business and the arts—is not a contradiction. It is a reflection of a certain kind of mind: one that finds value in both strategic thinking and cultural engagement, and that sees no reason to choose between them. From Saddle River, New Jersey, Robert Massimi continues to work in both.
