Roger S. Berkowitz is president and CEO of Legal Sea Foods.  He has been involved in the restaurant and fish business for over 30 years.  Under his stewardship, the family-owned Boston-based company has grown from five restaurants to a current total of 30.  Legal's territory spans eight states along the Eastern Seaboard, though an active mail-order division provides next-day service to the rest of the continental United States. Berkowitz says Legal's unique point of difference is that it is truly in the fish business.  According to Berkowitz, Legal Sea Foods is the only restaurant group in the country operating its own state of the art fish processing plant. The plant includes an on premise laboratory that tests all shellfish and seafood for purity.  This is what makes our seafood offerings special.  Indeed, Bon Appetit magazine touts a meal at Legal Sea Foods as among America's  "Top Ten Tried-and-True" dining experiences.

Berkowitz graduated from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University.  He also attended the Harvard Business School's OPM Program and the University of London's School of Business SEP program.  He employs his early training in broadcast journalism to great effect as chief spokesperson for Legal Sea Foods.  His face and voice are familiar from television and radio spots and a PBS special, and he frequently offers his expert opinion on network broadcasts (CNN, ABC News, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News) about the fishing industry.  He is a guest speaker at colleges and institutions, and he chairs and organizes conferences and events related to the fishing and restaurant industries, both in the US and on a global scale.  The scope of his business management expertise earned him inclusion in a pair of 2004 books, Dare to Lead! Uncommon Sense and Unconventional Wisdom from 50 Top CEOs by Mike Merrill (Career Press), and Leadership Secrets of the World's Most Successful CEOs by Eric Yaverbaum (Dearborn Trade Publishing). His expert guidance of Legal's business growth was also profiled in 2005's Shaping the Waves about entrepreneurship values refined at Harvard Business School.  And, since he's so often the subject of writing by others, Berkowitz took an author's turn himself when he co-wrote The New Legal Sea Foods Cookbook, published in 2002 by Broadway Books. 

Berkowitz has earned many awards, including two of the industry's highest: the Silver Plate in 1999 and the Golden Chain in 1998.  For cultivating a new breed of culinary professionals, Johnson & Wales University has given Berkowitz an honorary doctorate, the Culinary Institute of America has conferred an honorary master's degree, and Newbury College has awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.  Berkowitz's alma mater, Syracuse University, also recognized him with the prestigious Arents Alumni Award. 

Berkowitz serves on the boards of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston's Children's Hospital, UNICEF, Environmental League of Massachusetts, Century Bank, Blue Frontier Campaign, and the Northeast Seafood Coalition.  He also serves on the leadership council at the Harvard School of Public Health and he is a member of the Board of Overseers, Brandeis International Business School.