I Work With Successful Business Owners Who Know Their Companies Are Capable of More
I'm Lee Mulberry, founder of Northern Star Consulting.
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I've spent my career working with business owners, executives and leadership teams to solve difficult organizational problems and improve business performance.
Certified Organizational
Rewilding Adviser
One thing I've learned repeatedly:
Most successful business owners don't need someone telling them to work harder.
They're already working hard.
They need someone who can step outside the day-to-day noise, ask questions other people aren't asking, challenge assumptions when necessary and help determine which issues actually deserve their attention.
That's the role I try to play.
How I Work
I don't believe in arriving with a predetermined answer.
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Your company isn't identical to the last company I worked with.
Your people are different.
Your market is different.
Your goals are different.
And the problem you see may—or may not—be the problem we ultimately need to solve.
So I ask questions.
A lot of them.
I look for patterns, bottlenecks, contradictions and issues that have become accepted as "just the way things are."
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Then we determine what needs to change.
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I bring extensive executive management, consulting and coaching experience to that process, but my job isn't to run your business for you.
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My job is to help you and your team become increasingly capable of running it without me.
The Kind of Owners I Work Best With
My best clients tend to have several things in common.
They've already built something successful.
They're ambitious without believing growth at any cost is success.
They care about profitability.
They care about their employees.
They're willing to look critically at their organizations.
And they're smart enough to recognize that working harder isn't always the answer.
Most importantly, they're willing to consider one uncomfortable possibility:
"What if I'm part of the constraint?"
Owners willing to ask that question can accomplish extraordinary things.
Why Northern Star?
A northern star doesn't tell you exactly how to make the journey.
It gives you something essential:
Direction.
Businesses need the same thing.
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When everything seems urgent, leaders need clarity about where they're going, where they are now and what matters most.
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That's what Northern Star represents to me.
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And Why the Buffalo?
Anyone who knows me very long eventually discovers that I have a thing for buffalo.
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Actually, "a thing" may be understating it. What started as an appreciation became a lifelong fascination—and a collection numbering in the hundreds. But there are reasons the American bison has always resonated with me.
Strength.
Resilience.
Adaptability.
The importance of the herd.
And the determination to move through difficult conditions rather than simply avoid them.
Those are pretty good characteristics for a business, too.
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The buffalo reminds me that strength isn't just about size.
It's about the ability to adapt, endure and keep moving forward.
