Joe Friedman
Photo by: Steve Nozicka
After earning an MBA Degree from the Ohio State University, Joe started his career at the business school at Northeastern Illinois University where he taught courses in sales and marketing, management, finance and personnel. After teaching these topics several dozen times, Joe figured he understood the concepts well enough to apply them in the business world.
This led him to The First National Bank of Chicago in 1981. In six years, through a variety of jobs at the bank, Joe learned how to sell intangible products, developed Employee participative management programs, taught corporate and private bankers to sell and present, and met David Zehren.
With this background, in 1987 Joe made the transition to a Chicago based company specializing in presentation skills training. In six years as VP/Midwest Regional Manager, Joe designed and sold training services, spent 100+ days in the classroom each year, and managed the sales effort in a 20-state region.
Realizing that selling and delivering training was his passion, the natural step from there was to team up with his good friend David to form ZEHREN♦FRIEDMAN Associates. Joe is now “living happily ever after.”
