Star Executive was founded on the belief that there are many corporate performance excellence/sailing excellence drivers that are similar, but one of the important ones is  "decision-making under uncertainty." This skill is paralleled both in the corporate world and the competitive sailing world, and proficiency leads to success. Star Executive addresses this and other success factors in a team building and leadership environment.

Biography of Chief Executive Officer

Kimberly Birkenfeld

Ranked the number one US woman Olympic-class windsurfer on the US Sailing Team in 2001 and 2002, Kimberly Birkenfeld knows that hard work and perseverance pay off.

A Harvard MBA, with a BA from Brown University, Kimberly has enjoyed a fifteen year career as a branding strategist for firms including PepsiCo, Ernest and Julio Gallo Winery, Balance Bar Company, lastminute.com, and a host of other businesses in a variety of market sectors from sporting equipment to e-commerce entertainment.  With multinational consulting experience in Europe, Australia and Asia, she directed her own global branding consultancy.

Kimberly’s business background has also given her a unique viewpoint from which to embrace the Olympic training experience.  She has the ability to transfer the athlete training tools to a business context that promotes leadership and teamwork.  She knows what is relevant and how those tools can be used by managers and staff members to find the best in themselves and enjoy their work.  And few things are more successful than happy, motivated workers with good leadership.

“Many people don’t realize how closely sailing mirrors real life and business.  In every day of racing and training you experience adversity, setbacks, and success.  Maybe you get a bad start, or someone fouls you.  You learn to trust yourself and your team, keep your focus, work smart, and have fun.  I recently experienced a serious accident while training with the Olympic team in Athens.  It is a struggle to battle back from a very debilitating injury, but I look at it like another race.  I might not win today, but I’ll work hard at it, make it fun, rely on help from my team, and win another day.”

Biography of Chief Operations Officer

Magnus Liljedahl

In winning the Olympic gold medal in Sailing at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, Magnus Liljedahl personified the against-all-odds fighting spirit that has earned him the nickname "The Viking". A dedicated athlete and sailor since childhood, he has competed at the top of his sport since he was a young man with many notable accomplishments on his sailing resume.

In 1997, he teamed up with Mark Reynolds with the hopes of making the Olympic team. Their first few victories in world-level regattas gave them a top ranking, and for the next two years they dominated the Star Boat class before capturing the US Olympic Trials in the spring of 2000 and the right to represent the United States at the Sydney Games.

Just ten months earlier, Liljedahl’s wife of 22 years, Agneta, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. He took a hiatus from training for the next four months to become her ‘coach’ in fighting what would eventually be a losing battle. Almost exactly 1 year prior to the Sydney games, Magnus lost his beloved Agneta.

Magnus credits his return to Olympic training for his ability to recover from this devastating blow. Over the next six months, Reynolds and Liljedahl continued to compete successfully, but without the dominance of prior months. Many thought they had peaked too soon, and Liljedahl’s personal loss was weighing heavy. After five Olympic races (out of 11 total), they stood 12th in the standings by a significant margin, an almost impossible deficit to overcome in such a talented field of international champions.

In what has been called the greatest comeback in Olympic sailing history, a demoralized Liljedahl remembers bringing to bear all they had learned in training camp - the mental exercises, the competitive strategies, the physical training - that enabled them to find the focus and determination to go on. The duo stunned the competition by posting finishes of 1-2-4-1-2 in the final days of the Olympic Regatta and vaulted to the top of the medal podium, bringing home the gold for the United States.

Six weeks later Reynolds and Liljedahl were named the International Sailing Federation/Sperry World Sailors of the Year 2000. The short list of nominees contained all the gold medal winners from the Sydney Olympics and the winning New Zealand America's Cup team. The voters were sailors and journalists from all over the world and on November 7th, they received this top honor from His Majesty King Harold of Norway during a ceremony in Edinburgh, Scotland. And on Feb. 9, 2001, with the New York Yacht Club Model Room as a backdrop, the Rolex Yachtsman of the Year Awards were given to the team of Reynolds and Liljedahl, completing the "clean sweep" of the most prestigious awards in the sport of sailing.

Today Liljedahl shares his life experiences, training tips, motivation and team building skills with a variety of business and sporting entities. He sees sailing as a metaphor for life and business. "The camaraderie among the sailors is fantastic. The sport itself is very complex and involves many different areas of adversity. You are dealing with a boat and its different parts, wind, water, current and waves. There are strategy and tactics, which best could be compared to a chess game. It is intense competition, always invigorating. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. And then you go back out and win again. It is a great sport because you can stay with it your entire life. Your mentors, idols, and competitors become your friends and you watch one another develop throughout your lifetime".

Liljedahl and Reynolds are currently on track to compete in the next Olympic Games in Athens, Greece in 2004. Magnus says, "I know that we have a good chance of a repeat and I would hate to walk away while I am still able to perform at the top level".

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