stephen epstein, MARCH, mba


STRATEGIC ADVISOR

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During Stephen Epstein’s 25-year career, he has provided leadership across a broad spectrum of professional practice areas within small, medium and large design firms with diverse portfolios.  For the sixteen years prior to joining Strogoff Consulting, Stephen was a Principal with the award-winning firm Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates and its successor firm Pfeiffer Partners Architects.  As Principal, he guided the firms’ strategic planning, finance, operations, human resources and project management initiatives.

With Master of Architecture and Master of Business Administration degrees from Arizona State University, Stephen combines enthusiasm for design and the built environment with a natural disposition for leadership, strategic thinking, and organizational and behavioral management.  For much of his career, Stephen focused his creative energy on what he refers to as “business context design” in which he integrates the passion and rigor inspired by his formal design education with the discipline and strategic perspective acquired in business school.

Stephen believes that elevating a firm’s culture by nurturing employees through professional development, enhancing client leadership skills, clearly communicating a firm’s value proposition, streamlining operations and improving financial performance, inspires people to achieve their full creative potential. This, in turn, results in more effective design and professional services, higher levels of client satisfaction, more desirable commissions and repeat clients.  Stephen helps professional firms create an optimal balance between sustaining a successful business and fostering a dynamic design environment.

INCREMENTAL CHANGES, DRAMATIC EFFECTS
Incremental changes, if planned and implemented within the framework of a long-range visionary strategy, can have dramatic effects.  Every business has the potential to improve its fundamental success factors, and Stephen has the practice management expertise to help firms to implement meaningful improvements.  From his comprehensive “hands-on” real world experience, he is keenly aware of the challenges design firms encounter and is adept at navigating them by developing effective strategic solutions.
Stephen helps professional firms create the optimal balance between sustaining a successful business and fostering a dynamic design environment.”
Stephen thinks that the essential qualities of leadership include genuinely caring about people and actively participating in their professional development.  He has often embraced the opportunity to serve as a mentor and coach to firm leaders and emerging professionals. 

Stephen has facilitated seminars and panel discussions on such topics as leadership development, attracting and retaining talent, operational and project financial management, profitability, contract language and risk management, among others, with the goal of preparing design professionals to assume positions of increasing leadership responsibility and accountability.  Strogoff Consulting provides Stephen the opportunity to share his knowledge and experience and to gain ongoing satisfaction from helping people reach their full potential.