2011
The founding
David Mitroff, Ph.D. founds Piedmont Avenue Consulting in Oakland, CA. First engagements span Bay Area restaurants, retail, and emerging tech firms — the same diversity of practice that defines the firm today.
Our Story
From solo consultancy to recognized firm.
Fourteen years of intentional growth, deep client relationships, and a methodology refined across hundreds of engagements.
2013
UC Berkeley partnership
David becomes a College Instructor in Marketing and Entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley Extension's International Diploma Program. Marks the start of a continuing academic relationship that informs the firm's methodology.
2015
Ben & Jerry's engagement
Multi-location franchise plus corporate catering work with Ben & Jerry's Northern California begins. The engagement extends across three SF Bay Area locations and produces a long-term client relationship still active today.
2017
Google Mentor recognition
David is invited to mentor for Google for Startups Accelerator, working with founders globally — Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, France, Italy, Switzerland.
2019
Practice expansion
Firm expands service lines to include law firm consulting, hospitality, and dedicated lead generation engagements. David authors The Event Effect, Law Firm Business Growth Strategies, and other practitioner books.
2022
TEDx talks
David delivers two TEDx talks including "How Leaders Create Luck" — distilling a decade of consulting work into a framework for entrepreneurial decision-making. Reaches international audience.
2024
Recognized industry leader
Featured media expert for NBC, ABC, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune. Founder named Líder Diamante by Líderes de Baja California.
Today
The practice now
Active engagements across hospitality, legal, fitness, retail, and consumer products. Six-month minimum engagements, structured methodology, measurable outcomes — and a growing team of consultants serving clients throughout the Bay Area.
Founder · Vimeo
David Mitroff, Ph.D. — Business Keynote Speaker
Want to see how we'd approach your business? The next conversation is free.
— Our Mission
Make small business strategy real — through implementation, not slide decks.
Most consultancies sell strategy and disappear. Most agencies execute without strategy. We do both — and we stay until your team can run the operation on its own.
The Piedmont Avenue methodology comes from David Mitroff's clinical psychology training, hundreds of consulting engagements, and active teaching at UC Berkeley Extension. The work isn't theoretical — it's pattern recognition across hundreds of real businesses, refined into something repeatable. We've worked with restaurants, law firms, retail boutiques, wellness practices, and B2B service firms across the SF Bay Area and nationally since 2011.
Our clients are operating businesses with $1M–$25M in revenue, ready to invest in real change. We're not a fit for pre-revenue startups, one-week projects, or teams that won't be involved in execution. The free 30-minute interview is where we figure out together whether we're a fit — no pressure, no pitch deck.
What sets the work apart isn't a proprietary framework or a clever methodology label. It's the simple commitment to strategy through execution across a six-month minimum engagement — long enough for real change to take root, short enough to deliver measurable outcomes. By month six, your team owns the methodology. We become advisors, not operators.
Team · Vimeo
Meet Our Team — Piedmont Avenue Consulting
What the methodology runs on:
01
Strategy and execution
Not slide decks. Not retainers without outcomes. We work alongside your team through implementation.
Our methodology → 02 Six-month minimumReal change in operating businesses doesn't happen in 30 days. Six months is the floor.
View packages → 03 Written diagnosticEvery engagement starts with a multi-day assessment across six dimensions. You own the report either way.
See assessment → 04 Founder-ledEvery engagement is led personally by David Mitroff, Ph.D. — not delegated to associates after the sales call.
Meet David →Ready to talk?
Six dimensions, six-month engagements, real outcomes.
Operating Principles
What we actually do, day to day.
Our work is shaped by three operating principles. They're abstractions until you see them in action — but they're the explanation for why our engagements run differently than most consulting work you've encountered.
01
Refocus what's already there
Audit the existing team, tools, and budget before recommending new spend. Most growth lives in better deployment, not bigger investment. The first month of every engagement is dedicated to surfacing leverage that's already inside the business.
02
Strategy plus implementation
Stay through execution. We don't ship slide decks and disappear — we sit in your weekly meetings, review the work product, and work alongside your team until the outcomes show up. Most engagements don't end at the strategy.
03
Skills transfer
Train the team to own the work after we leave. Engagements end with documented processes and capability — never dependency. By month six, your team owns the methodology. We become advisors, not operators.
These principles play out across every engagement. Real client work shows what they look like in practice.
Get Started
Ready for the conversation?
The free 30-minute interview is where we figure out whether we're a fit. No pitch, no pressure, no follow-up sequence pushing you to sign — and you walk away with two or three concrete actions either way.
Or call us directly · +1 (510) 761-5895