MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 2 | 63
Neil: Ivan, thank you for providing this inter-
view. Are you ready to tell us more about
you?
Ivan Misner: I am excited to do that.
Dr. Ivan Misner is the Founder & Chief Vi-
sionary Officer for BNI, the world's largest
business networking organization. He has
been called the "father of modern network-
ing" by CNN and one of the "Top Networking
Experts to Watch" by Forbes. He is a New
York Times Bestselling author who has
written 21 books. In addition, he is the Co-
Founder of the BNI Foundation.
Ivan, can you provide us with some more in-
sight into your business and personal life to
allow us to get to know more about what
you do, and who you are?
Ivan Misner: Well I grew up in Southern Cali-
fornia, I live in Texas these days, grew up in
Southern California, started my business in
California. I was looking for a way of gener-
ating referrals. for the business I was in. I
was a Management Consultant. And I put
together a group of people who I trusted
and they trusted me, and we got togetherand started passing referrals, someone came
who could not join because from the very
beginning, the organisation that I started,
BNI, we allowed only one person per profes-
sion. And someone came who could not join,
and she said, 'wow this is great, would you
help me open up my own group.' So, you
could do two of these. And I actually told
her, 'no this is not what I do, I am a business
consultant. I don't do networks.' And she
talked me in to it, she said, 'hey it is helping
me with my business.'
So, I opened a second group and we had
about 25 people come. Two could not join
because of a conflict in profession with oth-
ers. And both of them said, 'wow this is
great, I could get a ton of business could you
help me open up my own groups?' and I
said, 'no this is not what I do, I am a business
consultant.' And we opened those up and
we were off to the races.
We now have seven thousand, four hundred
groups in more than 65 countries around the
world. So, I would like to tell you, I had this
vision of an international organisation when
I started BNI but I was looking for referrals...Founder of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization
Interview by Neil Ball