ABOUT CEO CHEF®
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This is the part where we talk about us, but our real success has been that it's always been about YOU! We have realized that our true strength in the culinary team building world has been our ability to always make your team building experience relevant to you and your attendees. So each and every program is a reflection of your desires, team objectives and goals.
What makes us different and able to customize each program has been our mindset around food and training. This is critical when you conduct a cooking team building, to have the training and background of both culinary arts and corporate facilitation with speaking platform skills and has been the hallmark of what separates us from the cooking team building pack. |
A BIT OF HISTORY
We weren’t always called “CEO Chef”. We started in 1994 as “Jim Connolly and Associates Team Builders” and began offering consulting services and corporate team building programs to many of the elite of Silicon Valley like Hewlett Packard, Cisco Systems and Sun Microsystems.
Programs were offered by Jim Connolly when he was still part-owner and Executive Chef of the then, highly rated and regarded “Emile’s Restaurant”. This was where Chef Jim really exercised his understanding of true leadership and effective team chemistry while building a world-class restaurant team at his restaurant.
Very quickly the Culinary Team Building business grew to the point where Jim resigned his post at his highly successful restaurant and he devoted all of his efforts to the corporate team building world.
In 1996, the term “Team Cuisine” was born and became the flagship program of Jim Connolly & Associates Team Builders.
The popularity of cooking team building exercises grew to where Jim took on new trainers and associates, first in his very good friend and colleague, Carol Cole (later became Carol Cole-Lewis), Vito Serpa and Geoff Di Brandi.
In July of 2000, Jim Connolly was fortunate to find his current President and business partner, Renee Gordon, who now heads-up the event planning and operations division along with her original passion of client relations.
We became “CEO Chef®” in March of 2007 after many years of being called “Team Cuisine” by our clients. The name change came to reflect more closely the mission and vision of the company. Our flagship cooking team building idea also changed its name to the “Corporate Culinary Challenge® and at the same time, to reflect the growing popularity of the Food Channel show “Iron Chef”, we came up with the cooking team building exercise that uses competition called the “Ultimate Cooking Championship®”.
In 2010 CEO Chef launched a new division that acknowledges the need for “Culinary Entertainment” that also reflects the growing interest in fine food, wine and dining, for various groups, companies and professional organizations. It’s purpose is to offer experiential programs and speaking engagements that incorporate education and entertainment called “edutainment”, to introduce corporate executives to food, wine and dining that would benefit them in building relationships with their own clients. So picking the right wine or ordering the right meal at a restaurant to close a deal with a client is now fun and easy to do.
The need to support our customers with more quality leadership training and development was answered with the creation of the “i Lead: New Fundamentals of Leadership” coaching and training programs. So in March, 2015, the book and program, of the same name, was created as a joint effort with our new training partner, Peter Lisoskie. The i Lead process works as an independent one day program, a two day program along with the Corporate Culinary Challenge® or a three day program with the addition to the third day being a strategic business planning day using Peter Lisoskie’s Phoenix Process.
Continued growth in the Keynote speaking arena in the area of leadership and teamwork development as well as private Business Results Coaching & Consulting in November, 2015 answered the need for our clients and their teams to be inspired by the message through Keynotes and put into action within your business with our Business Results Coaching. We now have a three point solution for the transformation and improvement of your organization's leaders and teams with:
Programs were offered by Jim Connolly when he was still part-owner and Executive Chef of the then, highly rated and regarded “Emile’s Restaurant”. This was where Chef Jim really exercised his understanding of true leadership and effective team chemistry while building a world-class restaurant team at his restaurant.
Very quickly the Culinary Team Building business grew to the point where Jim resigned his post at his highly successful restaurant and he devoted all of his efforts to the corporate team building world.
In 1996, the term “Team Cuisine” was born and became the flagship program of Jim Connolly & Associates Team Builders.
The popularity of cooking team building exercises grew to where Jim took on new trainers and associates, first in his very good friend and colleague, Carol Cole (later became Carol Cole-Lewis), Vito Serpa and Geoff Di Brandi.
In July of 2000, Jim Connolly was fortunate to find his current President and business partner, Renee Gordon, who now heads-up the event planning and operations division along with her original passion of client relations.
We became “CEO Chef®” in March of 2007 after many years of being called “Team Cuisine” by our clients. The name change came to reflect more closely the mission and vision of the company. Our flagship cooking team building idea also changed its name to the “Corporate Culinary Challenge® and at the same time, to reflect the growing popularity of the Food Channel show “Iron Chef”, we came up with the cooking team building exercise that uses competition called the “Ultimate Cooking Championship®”.
In 2010 CEO Chef launched a new division that acknowledges the need for “Culinary Entertainment” that also reflects the growing interest in fine food, wine and dining, for various groups, companies and professional organizations. It’s purpose is to offer experiential programs and speaking engagements that incorporate education and entertainment called “edutainment”, to introduce corporate executives to food, wine and dining that would benefit them in building relationships with their own clients. So picking the right wine or ordering the right meal at a restaurant to close a deal with a client is now fun and easy to do.
The need to support our customers with more quality leadership training and development was answered with the creation of the “i Lead: New Fundamentals of Leadership” coaching and training programs. So in March, 2015, the book and program, of the same name, was created as a joint effort with our new training partner, Peter Lisoskie. The i Lead process works as an independent one day program, a two day program along with the Corporate Culinary Challenge® or a three day program with the addition to the third day being a strategic business planning day using Peter Lisoskie’s Phoenix Process.
Continued growth in the Keynote speaking arena in the area of leadership and teamwork development as well as private Business Results Coaching & Consulting in November, 2015 answered the need for our clients and their teams to be inspired by the message through Keynotes and put into action within your business with our Business Results Coaching. We now have a three point solution for the transformation and improvement of your organization's leaders and teams with:
- Experiential "Microlearning" with Cooking Team Building
- Inspiring Keynote messages to motivate to take action
- Put your plan into actions with Business Results Coaching/Consulting
MORE QUESTIONS?
If you are a reporter wanting to set up an interview. Just click on the button to the right. If you'd like to talk directly to a person, call 888-308-8326 and ask for Jean-Luc or send him an email at Connect@CEOChef.com and request a time from him.
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