Gerard I. Nierenberg

Who was Gerard I. Nierenberg?

Gerard Irwin Nierenberg was an American lawyer, author, and expert in negotiation and communication strategy. Forbes named Nierenberg “The Father of Negotiation Training” for his exploration of negotiation strategies and tactics as well as his decades of work disseminating the philosophy that “in a successful negotiation, everybody wins.” He published 22 books on the subject, and in 1966 he founded The Negotiation Institute where he began a legacy of government, corporate, and non-profit organizational reform based on his ideas of how negotiation impacts the lives of everyone. The three core tenets of Nierenberg’s philosophy are to be patient; to strive to meet the needs of the opposition party in order to build sustainable relationships from which all parties feel that they have 'won'; and to limit frustrations in all negotiations by embracing the fact that logic does not always lead to negotiated success. Nierenberg left a wife, Juliet, with whom he had three sons: Roy, Roger, and George.