Keith Ferrazzi

Biography

Keith Ferrazzi is one of the rare individuals to discover the essential formula for making his way to the top through a powerful, balanced combination of marketing acumen and networking savvy. Both Forbes and Inc Magazines have designated him one of the world's most "connected" individuals. Now, as Founder & CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, he provides market leaders with advanced strategic consulting and training services to increase company sales, and enhance personal careers. Ferrazzi Greenlight applies experiences gleaned from the careers of its executives spent in the highest echelons of corporate America, as well as principles from Ferrazzi's book, 'NEVER EAT ALONE And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time.'

Ferrazzi has been widely recognized by his peers, is a frequent contributor to CNN and CNBC, and has authored numerous articles for leading business publications, including Forbes, Inc, the Wall Street Journal and the Harvard Business Review. Ferrazzi was an early leader in the quality movement as the youngest examiner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. He has been named a "Global Leader of Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum, one of the top "40 Under 40" business leaders by Crain's Business, one of the most distinguished young Californians by the Jaycees, and one of the most creative Americans in Richard Wurman's "Who's Really Who". Ferrazzi's extraordinary rise to prominence, which includes a stint as the youngest Chief Marketing Officer for a Fortune 500 company while at Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, has even inspired a Stanford Business School case study.

Most recently, Ferrazzi served as Chief Executive Officer for YaYa Media, a leading interactive entertainment consultancy. Prior to that, while at Starwood Hotels, he oversaw all marketing activities for global brands such as Sheraton, Westin, The Luxury Collection, St. Regis, and W Hotels. Previously, Ferrazzi was Chief Marketing Officer of Deloitte Consulting, a leading global management consulting firm, where he developed and managed the industry's first globally integrated marketing organization. His creative marketing strategy drove the ascent of Deloitte's "Consulting" brand recognition from the lowest in the industry to a primary position, and spurred the highest featured growth rate in the industry.

Ferrazzi actively supports numerous civic, charitable and educational organizations, including his service on Yale University's Board of Alumni Governors. He is also a Fellow of the Berkeley College at Yale, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kiski School in Pennsylvania. Additionally, he founded and chairs Equality 1st, a foundation focused on assuring everyone has an equal chance at success. He is particularly interested in the relationship between leadership success and spirituality. Ferrazzi earned a BA degree from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Publications

Do you want to get ahead in life? Climb the ladder to personal success?
The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered early in life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins.

In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his Rolodex, people he has helped and who have helped him.

The son of a small-town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and one of Davos’ Global Leader for Tomorrow.

Ferrazzi's form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship-building from the crude, desperate glad-handling usually associated with “networking.” He then distills his system of reaching out to people into practical, proven principles. Among them:
Don’t keep score: It’s never simply about getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.

“Ping” constantly: The Ins and Outs of reaching out to those in your circle of contacts all the time—not just when you need something.
Never eat alone: The dynamics of status are the same whether you’re working at a corporation or attending a society event— “invisibility” is a fate worse than failure.

In the course of the book, Ferrazzi outlines the timeless strategies shared by the world’s most connected individuals, from Katherine Graham to Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordan to the Dalai Lama.

Chock full of specific advice on handling rejection, getting past gatekeepers, becoming a “conference commando,” and more, Never Eat Alone is destined to take its place alongside How to Win Friends and Influence People as an inspirational classic.