Norris Bernstein 

Coach

Fighting tomorrow’s battles with yesterday’s weapons is an exercise in futility.  Understanding today’s marketplaces is not enough.  Aiming for a share of the current market is walking into a room backwards.  Success requires understanding future trends.  If the future never comes, then how do we prepare for tomorrow’s today.

Let me help you understand the above in order to help you ensure success.

BACKGROUND 1977 – CURRENT

I am in my third decade working as a full-time general management

consultant with an emphasis in marketing. My background includes owning and managing three consumer-oriented companies through their various lifecycles as well as having a career in consulting. In other words, I’ve ‘been there, done that’. With this background, I am able to help clients ‘play it forward’ because of my training in both market segmentation and in understanding the difference between a trend and a fad, arguably the single most vital element in successful business plan development and growth.

My clients have included a range from local start-ups to divisions of Fortune 500 companies. I have lived and worked throughout the US as well as in Australia, Japan, South Africa, Italy, and in Germany, where besides consulting, I was also one of the owners and founders of the first chain of chocolate chip cookie shops in Europe.

I have spoken on various topics under the sponsorship of organizations such as USIA in Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Mexico, and Jamaica. I have also met with classes at several universities to talk about business formation and entrepreneurism. I am a member of The Institute of Management Consultants, sit on several civic, corporate as well as on advisory boards, and I am a mentor to Food From The Hood, a student-run company based in South Central Los Angeles. Currently, I am the Founding Chair of the Advisory Board of the Chicago School of Psychology, Los Angeles Campus.

BACKGROUND 1952 to 1977

Following graduation, I continued my career in our family restaurant in Long Beach, California. During the years, our family had developed a group of salad dressings that people enjoyed and wished to take home. In 1952, Bernstein’s Salad Dressings became a separate company and entered the local marketplaces. I assumed the presidency of the company in 1964 and put together the team that built it from a small regional brand to one of national and international prominence at its time of sale to Nalley’s Fine Foods, a division of W.R. Grace, in 1974. I left Nalley’s in 1977.

EDUCATION

1951 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Bachelor of Arts Degree

2000 Certification in Myers-Briggs training