Howard Helfant is a successful business consultant and sometime venture capital investor based in Miami, Florida. He is a 1980 graduate of Columbia University, where he received a Bachelor’s degree in marketing. He has been an independent consultant since 2011. He collects wine as a hobby, although he says he doesn’t care for that word. “To me, ‘hobby’ implies something trivial,” he says. “I take this pretty seriously.” Some of the wine he buys is not intended for consumption; rather, he lets these wines appreciate in value, and then sells it at a profit. One prime example of this is a 1982 Lafite-Rothchild he bought for $41.00 back in 1982. “I didn’t know much of anything then, but my then-fiancée said it was a golden opportunity. She was right.” He sold that single bottle for $5,000 in 2012, a price increase of more than 12,000%. “That was definitely the exception,” he says. “Most of the wine I buy, I expect to drink, sooner or later.” He says he usually shies away from wh
Howard Helfant is a veteran marketing consultant who lives and works in Miami, Florida. Howard Helfant holds a degree in marketing from Columbia University. Whenever he gets the opportunity, he enjoys plying the waters off of Florida’s east coast. “I really love boating, and Miami is blessed with so many places to see and explore on the water,” he says. “When you get onto the Biscayne Bay, the view of the Miami skyline is just breathtaking.” He says there are three islands he likes to cruise by: Hibiscus Island, Star Island, and Palm Island. “They’re clustered a bit north of the MacArthur Causeway. They’re dotted with beautiful homes; it’s a pleasant cruise.” He is the owner of a thirty-foot pontoon boat he named Chef’s Surprise. “The day we launched it, we did this whole christening thing with a bottle of champagne,” he recalls. “It was a real hoot.” He’s skippered the Chef’s Surprise as far north as the Sea Islands off the Georgia Coast, where he and his friends anchor