Business & Life Strategist

I’ve been where you are...

I know what it feels like to carry the weight of building something real. I spent decades inside family business, high-stakes deals, growing companies, managing people, navigating pressure, and making decisions where a lot was on the line. From the apparel business to real estate development to launching new ventures, I learned firsthand that success is never just about the numbers. It’s about people, timing, leadership, and how you handle yourself when the pressure is on.

There were seasons when everything moved fast and seasons when the path was far less clear. Challenges inside the business. Challenges inside relationships. Moments where the next move mattered and the cost of getting it wrong was real. I learned that when you are in the middle of it every day, it can be almost impossible to see clearly what is actually happening.

Over time, people began coming to me for guidance. They wanted perspective, strategy, and someone who had actually been there before. Without advertising or branding, word spread through relationships and results. What started as conversations became a calling.

Today, I work with CEOs, founders, and operators who are building something significant and need a trusted voice in their corner. I help leaders get clear, move faster, and navigate the personal, operational, and strategic challenges that come with growth. And I’d love to show you how it’s done. To get started, click the button below to schedule a strategy call today.

Because when people do better, businesses do better.

My Story

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Every family has a story that shapes everything that comes after it. Mine starts in Aleppo, Syria, with a man named Morris Sitt — my grandfather.

Morris was one of five brothers, and he was the first to make the journey to America. He arrived with nothing but a sample case full of linens and the kind of work ethic that did not need a name because it was simply who he was. He walked the streets of New York, door to door, selling linens out of that case. He opened linen stores on Fifth Avenue. He built a life. And one by one, his brothers followed him here.

He was a man who loved his wife deeply and loved life in a way that was contagious to everyone around him. In the 1940s, he made his first trip to the Orient to explore new business opportunities. He was always moving forward. Always building. That drive did not skip a generation.

MY FATHER — EDDIE M. SITT

My father, Eddie M. Sitt, was one of the most remarkable men I have ever known. Charismatic, brilliant, fearless, and deeply committed to his community. He met my mother, Gloria Herzog, at a dance. Their eyes locked, and the rest, as they say, is history.

He was president of Magen David Yeshivah and the man who brought UJA into our community, and his speeches are still remembered by people in our community today. When it came to raising money for charity, you did not say no to Eddie Sitt. In the 1970s, when the school had a three-million-dollar mortgage, he looked at the situation and said, “We are going to pay it all off.” And he did.

He was also one of the first six families to buy homes in Deal, New Jersey, in the early 1960s — a pioneer who was never afraid to take risks or say exactly what he thought. He invested in stocks, real estate, and business. He was a forward thinker in every sense of the word. His relationships with community leaders, rabbis, and businessmen of his era were deep and lasting.

To this day, people call me just to tell me how much my father meant to them.

“Jeff, I was just thinking about your dad. I want you to know he was a man who affected my life tremendously.”

That is the legacy he left. And I have tried every day to be worthy of it.

THE ORIENT — MY BUSINESS EDUCATION

I was fourteen years old when I made my first trip to the Orient. Not for school. Not for a summer program. For work. My father was building a business, and I was going to be part of it.

By eighteen, I was making regular trips — one month, two months, three months at a time. My father made the rules very clear. In any meeting, my job was to listen.

That discipline changed the way I think. Sitting in rooms with men like Moe Hidary, Ralph Gindi, Alfred Sutton, Sonny Gindi, and Saul Ashkenazi,to name a few, watching how they operated, how they negotiated, how they treated people — that was my business school. You cannot learn what I learned in a classroom.

As the business expanded, I traveled all across Asia: Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Pakistan. I was exposed to cultures, people, and ways of doing business that gave me a perspective most people never get. I fell in love with detail. I fell in love with people who cared deeply about what they were doing and how they did it.

Building Something Real

The apparel business my family built together became something significant. At its peak, the company was doing seventy-five to one hundred million dollars annually. We held licenses from Walt Disney, Turner Broadcasting, and Coca-Cola — hundreds of licenses combined with apparel. Our customers included Walmart, Kmart, Sears, JC Penney, and Bloomingdale’s across every channel of distribution.

I was responsible for sales, production, design, licensing and marketing. Everything on the front end of that business ran through me. And the only way that was possible was because I surrounded myself with great people. My father taught me that. The people are everything. We also entered the brand licensing business.

When the apparel industry shifted, I shifted with it. I moved into real estate — acquiring, developing, and repositioning properties. I was an early pioneer in DUMBO and Williamsburg when those neighborhoods were still rough around the edges. We acquired properties at 99 Gold Street and 351 Bowery, and I was part of buying an entire city block of cold storage facilities in Brooklyn and converting them. We did ground-up construction and renovations that, at the time, were considered unconventional.

I also opened a coffee bar, O-Cafe, at Sixth Avenue and 12th Street in New York City with my then-partner, Fernando Aciar — a brilliant creative mind. We built something really special together.

THE PIVOT — FROM BUILDING TO GUIDING

About fifteen years ago, something shifted.

From the outside, everything looked like it was working. The businesses were growing. The deals were happening. The numbers were there.

But behind the scenes, I was carrying too much. Too many decisions. Too much pressure. Too many things that depended on me.

When you are in the middle of it like that, you do not see clearly. You start reacting instead of leading. You push harder, but things do not move the way they should. The weight builds — personally and professionally.

I crashed to my lowest point, professionally and personally. But amidst the wreckage of one life, a new one was revealed.

Through personal development, faith, and community, I found renewed vitality, purpose, and clarity. Not theory. Clarity.

I started consulting and coaching. And then quietly, without any branding or advertising, people just started hiring me. Word spread through the community the way it always does — through relationships.

One evening I ran into my good friend Harry Adjmi at David’s Steak House on Kings Highway. We caught up, and he asked what I was doing these days. When I told him about the consulting and coaching, he stopped me mid-sentence. He said, “Get in my office tomorrow at three o’clock.” When Harry says that, you listen.

That conversation launched a new chapter.

WHAT I ACTUALLY DO

I am a Business & Life Strategist. I work with CEOs, founders, and operators — men who are building something significant and who need someone in their corner who has actually been in the trenches.

As a leader, it is almost impossible to see clearly what is happening when you are in the middle of it. You are on the ground. You are fighting the business war every day. My job is to climb above it with you — to see the forest and then come back down and tell you exactly which trees to cut.

I work on three levels simultaneously: the personal — who you are as a leader, how you think, how you react under pressure; the operational — what is actually happening inside your business right now; and the strategic — where you are going and how to get there faster.

Within some of the businesses I work with, I also work with family members — fathers and sons, brothers, partners. Things get lost in translation. Relationships fracture. I help put them back together.

Because I have always known that when people do better, businesses do better. That is not a philosophy. That is what I have seen over and over again.

What I help people do is get to their destination with the least amount of turbulence, as efficiently as possible.

I diagnose. I create a plan. And I execute alongside them.

FAITH, FAMILY & WHAT DRIVES ME

My faith is not separate from my work. It is woven through everything I do. I draw constantly from our traditions, our teachings, and our practices — bringing those insights into the conversations I have with the men I work with. It all connects.

One of the most important things I help leaders understand is this: we do not control the moment in front of us. An employee quits. A client cancels. Something breaks. We cannot control any of it. What we can control is our reaction. In that space between what happens and how we respond — that is where I work.

I have four sons, all of them entrepreneurial in their own right, all of them hardworking. I am extraordinarily proud of them. And I have amazing grandchildren who remind me every day what all of this is actually for.

When my boys were young and fighting with each other, I brought home pieces of wood from the hobby shop. I gave each one a single piece and told them to break it. They snapped it instantly. Then I gave them four pieces taped together. They could not break it. I told them, “You may not always like each other. You may argue. But if you stay together, nothing can break you.”

I do not know where that came from. But I have tried to live by it ever since.

Ready to Get Clear?

If you are a business leader who is ready to get clear, move faster, and build something that lasts — I would love to talk.

Jeff Sitt

Business & Life Strategist

After decades of building companies, developing real estate, and leading teams where a lot was on the line, Jeff chose to use everything he had learned to help other leaders grow what they were building. Having worked with high-level founders, executives, operators, and family businesses, he helps clients diagnose what is really happening, create the right plan, and implement what moves the business forward. Jeff is on a mission to help leaders move the business forward faster and with less weight on their shoulders.