Keith Ferrazzi

Keith Ferrazzi is an American author and entrepreneur.^[1] He is the founder and CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, a Los Angeles, California-based research and consulting firm.^[2] He wrote the New York Times bestselling books Never Eat Alone and Who's Got Your Back?^[3][4] Keith Ferrazzi first created the term co-elevation^[5] in 2017, as he was writing the book, Leading Without Authority: How Co-Elevation Is Redefining Collaboration and Transforming Our Teams,^[6] with the publisher Penguin Random House.

Keith Ferrazzi
Born	Pennsylvania
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Yale University Harvard Business School
Occupations	Chairman & Founder of Ferrazzi Greenlight author entrepreneur
Notable work	Never Eat Alone Who's Got Your Back?
Title	Ferrazzi Greenlight (Founder & CEO)
Website	keithferrazzi.com

Early life and education

Ferrazzi was born and grew up in Pennsylvania.^[7] He attended Yale University, where he founded the Sigma Chi chapter there, and Harvard Business School.^[8]

Career

After graduating from Harvard, he joined management consulting firm Deloitte as an entry-level analyst, and rose to become the company's chief marketing officer (CMO).^[9] At age 32, he was hired by Starwood as CMO, reportedly the youngest CMO in the Fortune 500 at the time.^[9] In 2000, he left to found YaYa Media, an entertainment and marketing company, which he sold to investment company American Vantage in 2003.^[9][8]

Ferrazzi left YaYa Media to found Ferrazzi Greenlight, a Los Angeles-based strategic consulting firm, and its associated Greenlight Research Institute. The company and institute focus on the importance of positive relationships to business success.^[10]

Keith Ferrazzi (right) with Alexey Kekulov in Moscow

Books

Ferrazzi has written two networking books that were New York Times bestsellers.

His first book, Never Eat Alone, was based on his networking experiences, and was published in 2005.^[2][11]

His second book, Who's Got Your Back?, followed up and expanded on the themes from his first book, and was published in 2009.^[4]

In 2020, he wrote a new book, Leading Without Authority. Keith Ferrazzi discusses how "co-elevation" will transform peers into joint task teammates.^[12]