Clifford "Cliff" Burnstein (born July 1948) is an American music manager and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Q Prime, a New York-based music management company that has represented prominent rock acts, including Metallica.

Burnstein began his career at Mercury Records, where he signed Rush to their first American record deal. He later worked with Peter Mensch at the management firm Leber-Krebs, which managed AC/DC and other artists, before the two co-founded Q Prime.

Burnstein was born in July 1948, and grew up in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois. His father was a tax lawyer, and his grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Burnstein's maternal grandparents were garment workers, and his paternal grandfather arrived in the United States "from Russia when he was thirteen or fourteen." Without knowing any English, his grandfather learned how to typeset for Yiddish newspapers, eventually earning enough to relocate to Chicago.

Burnstein attended Highland Park High School, where he competed in debate and found a passion for music. He grew up listening to soul, rock, and blues on AM radio stations from across the country, such as "WBZ from Boston, WLAC from Nashville, KAAY from Little Rock, [and] WABC from New York." In high school, he would send self-addressed envelopes to 20 or more radio stations each week to collect their local surveys, compiling them into his own crudely weighted Top One Hundred national survey. As Burnstein recalled, "'I was obsessed. And it was a tremendous amount of work. But I did this all through high school.'"

Burnstein then attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned both a B.A. and M.A. He continued into a PhD program in demography, but pivoted toward looking for jobs in the music business as his scholarship ran out and true love for music came into focus.

After sending out his resume to dozens of music companies, Burnstein received an interview from Mercury Records in Chicago. In 1973, he was hired into the label's finance department by its then-president, Irwin Steinberg.

That same year, Burnstein was promoted to National Album Promotion Director within the label. In this role, Burnstein cold-called every station on the Walrus FM radio tip sheet, a newsletter that tracked the most added and popular records of the previous two weeks. At the time, Burnstein was promoting bands such as Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Thin Lizzy, and the New York Dolls. When he called Brandeis University's WBRS, the program director, Peter Mensch, picked up. The two became fast friends, connecting over their shared music taste.

In June 1974, Burnstein signed Rush to their first American record deal. He had one business day to make the decision after their self-titled debut album, Rush, was submitted to Mercury. Burnstein said that Moon Records, the band's Canadian label, was seeking to export the album after it began to receive traction in Cleveland, Ohio. Burnstein confirmed with Cleveland rock station WMMS that the record was gaining traction and convinced Steinberg to sign the band that same day. Following their signing, Rush began to receive success, eventually becoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees in 2013.