Charles Baum is the founder of Starting Point, a consulting practice that helps organizations use immediate performance successes to build momentum and capability for larger-scale improvement and change.

Baum worked for six years with Robert Schaffer & Associates, the firm that founded the breakthrough approach for managing performance-driven change described in the Harvard Business Review classic "Successful Change Programs Begin with Results." He then spent four years as a general manager in a construction firm, where he helped transform a chronically troubled inner-city division into a high-performing organization. This experience is described in the business best-seller The Wisdom of Teams by Jon Katzenbach and Doug Smith.

From 1991 through 1996, Mr. Baum?s principal client was McKinsey & Company. He personally launched more than 300 teams to help McKinsey consultants and clients begin their change initiatives. This involvement, along with a description of his work with Dun & Bradstreet, is discussed in Taking Charge of Change by Doug Smith and Masterful Coaching by Robert Hargrove. He participated in Vice President Gore?s National Performance Review. In particular, he helped the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OAHA) achieve immediate performance results to kick-start and lend credibility to its nation-wide reinvention process.

Baum holds a B.A. in economics and psychology from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He has served as a faculty member of the New York City Leadership Institute, and as a governor-appointed member of the State of Washington's Information Services Board, which oversees the state's information technology investments. He also serves as an executive coach to participants in "Achieving Excellence," a collaboration between NeighborWorks America and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.