Center for Expert Performance: About

Vincent C. Racioppo, Ph.D.

Vince Racioppo brings a wealth of experience from business and academia. He earned his Ph.D. in Education and Computer Science in 1981 from the University of Iowa. His pioneering work produced innovative human and resource planning models, numerous valuable education programs, and a published guide for establishing Management Information Systems. In recent years, Dr. Racioppo has had extensive study in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and is a Certified Practitioner and Modeler of NLP.

During a decade with the IBM Corporation, Vince acted as an external consultant, project manager, and sales representative and supervisor. As Executive Vice President of the Business Performance Institute, Vince conducted successful training, speaking and consulting activities nationwide.

He has provided innovative training, coaching and consulting for organizations such as Bank of America, Jones Lang LaSalle, Mercury Marine, Motorola, Manpower, EHS Healthcare (now Advocate Healthcare), Sanford Pen, Ameritech, Moore (Formerly Moore Business Forms), Mercury Marine and Discover Card.

Now as President of the Center for Expert Performance, Inc., he has produced numerous models of expert performance, has published articles, and is working on a book titled Expert Performance Leadership.

Tom Mastandrea

Tom held senior positions in organization development and human resources management at General Electric, International Paper, Household International and Bankers Trust Company. He also started and managed the Human Resources Department for Covia, the information systems subsidiary of United Airlines.

Tom was trained in Organization Development by leaders in the field at National Training Labs, where he completed the Program for Specialists in Organization Development. More recently, he has done advanced work with the A. K. Rice Institute in the field of group dynamics, and with Sue Miller Hurst in Dialogues. Tom holds a Masters Degree in Industrial Relations (1991) from Loyola of Chicago with a concentration in Organization Behavior, and a Master of Arts from St. John's University.

Seymour Rifkind

Seymour Rifkind is the past President of the Interface Group, a 33-year-old marketing communication firm. Interface provided marketing services to some of the largest corporations in the world, Toshiba, Siemens, Motorola and Baxter to name a few.

Interface won numerous industry awards for advertising, direct mail and complete integrated programs. Seymour was also an adjunct professor teaching an integrated marketing communication class at Columbia College.

He is the author of the best selling book 21st Century Samurai: The Secret Path to Success & Fulfillment, which has been translated into five foreign languages. Seymour has done over 50 radio interviews and has been featured in a number of national publications. He is an executive coach and sought after keynote speaker. He has spoken internationally on branding and corporate identities, as well as his most recent motivational topics - life mastery, value-based leadership and goals/beyond excellence.

Developing the next generation of leaders is extremely important to Seymour. He is the founder of Future Leaders Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation whose mission is to identify young potential leaders and empower them to practice value-based leadership skills. He is a graduate of The Institute for Life Coach Training, a member of the International Coaching Federation and a certified trainer for Consulting Resource Group International.

Seymour has led an active lifestyle as he has competed in sports his entire life. He is considered one of the worlds' peak performance experts.

An International Gold Medal Winning Gymnast
Worked with five Olympic Champion Gymnasts
Competed Internationally in Tennis
Completed Chicago, New York and Boston Marathons'
Summited the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere
A black belt and certified instructor in Tae Kwon Do
Ironman triathlon age group winner
50K ultra-marathon age group winner
Completed Badwater 135 mile ultra-marathon (considered the toughest footrace in the world)

Seymour has been married for 28 years and has two sons ages 26 and 23. He received his BS degree from the University of Iowa and MBA from the University of Nebraska.

Steve Grossman - Advisor

For more than twenty years, Steve has consulted on domestic and international sales force management and sales compensation issues as well as marketing, competitive analysis and organization effectiveness. He has served a wide range of industries including: media and entertainment, consumer products, distribution, hospitality, medical products/systems/services, professional and business services, financial services, telecommunications, hi-tech, and general manufacturing.

Steve Grossman, a Principal in Mercer's Human Capital Business, leads Mercer's Sales Effectiveness group in the Americas. Mercer's Sales Effectiveness group helps clients to focus their sales effort on the right customer segments, optimize their sales and sales management processes, and effectively motivate and enable their sales people to exceed expectations.

Before joining Mercer, he served as managing director of a firm that provided sales and marketing effectiveness training and consulting services. Earlier, he was a principal in the sales force management practice of another major international consulting firm.

A frequent speaker on sales effectiveness, Steve has authored numerous articles and is a principal contributor to several books on various sales effectiveness topics including high performing sales efforts (Journal of Organization Excellence, Selling Power Magazine) and sales compensation (WorldatWork).

Steve's recent research and client work into the effectiveness and role of the front line sales manager is uncovering opportunities to improve the performance of this often underleveraged, but pivotal, role in a sales effort. He has written and spoken on this topic at World@Work and other leading sales and management conferences, meetings and publications.

Steve holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Tufts University and an MBA from Boston University. He is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC).



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