School for Startups Radio

April 1, 2026 - Double-Up Money Mastery Gary Ashworth and Junipr PR Samantha Flynn

Gary Ashworth – CEO, Chairman, Investor x 30, Built Multiple £100m+ Companies, Successful Multi Million Pound Exits, Bringing Together UK & UAE Founders Who Want To Double Their Stake Every Three Years, and Author of Double-Up Money Mastery
You only have to double 100,000 bucks to make 100 million,now that’s just 10 good decisions.
Gary Ashworth is a serial entrepreneur, CEO, Chairman, non-executive director, and media commentator with over four decades of experience building and backing businesses across the UK and Dubai. Over the past 40 years, he has founded or supported more than 30 companies spanning recruitment, healthcare, property, and banking consultancy, helping each scale sustainably, exit successfully, or evolve into industry leaders. He launched his first business, Abacus Recruitment, at age 21; it later listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market in 1995 and was sold three years later for ten times its original value. Building on that success, he founded InterQuest Group, growing it into one of the UK’s leading technology recruitment businesses with over £100 million in turnover, operating multiple brands and serving global clients across specialist technology markets. Today, he serves as Chairman of Albany Beck, a specialist banking consultancy, manages a diverse property portfolio, and actively invests in ventures that have achieved multiple £100 million valuations and successful multi-million-pound exits. He is also a business coach, public speaker, and mentor, working with founders and executives on growth, scalability, and wealth creation strategies, while connecting UK and UAE entrepreneurs focused on doubling their stake every three years. An Amazon best-selling author, he wrote Double-Up: Money Mastery, which teaches that doubling £10,000 ten times can lead to £10 million.Samantha Flynn – Founder of Award-Winning Junipr Public Relations, Strategic Comms for CPG, B2C & B2B Brands, Forbes Communications Council Member, Keynote Speaker, Certified Women-Owned Business (WBE) and Author of The EntrePReneur Advantage: Turning Chaos into Clarity
Sometimes I think that your potential clients or customers haveno idea that they could be your potential clients or customers,unless you make that crystal clear to them.
Samantha Flynn is the founder of Junipr Public Relations, and she’s built a reputation for stripping away the jargon to help founders find their ‘So What?’ As the founder and owner of Junipr Public Relations, I help clients overcome communication challenges through comprehensive, strategic communications programs that deliver real impact. At Junipr, we believe in doing smart work for nice people—collaborating with clients who value thoughtful strategy, meaningful results, and genuine partnership. With 15 years of experience leading public relations initiatives across B2B, B2C, and CPG sectors, career highlights include features and partnerships surrounding the Super Bowl, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, SXSW and more, with work being seen in Good Morning America, the Today Show, CNBC Radio, Woman’s World, and more. As active thought leader in the public relations and marketing industry, speaking engagements include the Digital Summit Series, DigiMarCon at Solider Field, AAF Hawai’i and Syracuse University. Op-Ed content has been featured in PR Week, PR Digital Explained, The Wrap and more. She believes that PR isn’t a luxury for the end of the journey, it’s a foundational tool for decision-making and scale. Today, we’re unpacking her framework for cutting through a fragmented media landscape and why your ‘authenticity’ might actually be your greatest competitive advantage.

March 31, 2026 – Tech Sales Bob Kocis and The Emphatic Leader Dr. Melissa Robinson-Winemiller

Bob Kocis – President and Chief Operating Officer of Aptean and author of The President’s Club Mindset: Inside the Winning Strategies of Tech’s Most Successful Sales People
Everybody said curiosity was one of their key superpowers.
Bob Kocis is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Aptean and a seasoned global sales leader with more than three decades of experience in enterprise technology and revenue growth. He is the author of The President’s Club Mindset: Inside the Winning Strategies of Tech’s Most Successful Sales People, where he distills the principles and habits behind sustained elite sales performance. Kocis began his career in sales in the mid 1990s and steadily advanced into senior leadership roles, including leading global channel and emerging markets at PTC, serving as Vice President of Worldwide Sales at ANSYS, and acting as Chief Revenue Officer at Continuum. Over the course of his career, he has built and led high performing sales organizations across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, including time based in Shanghai managing regional operations. Known for his customer first approach and focus on execution, Kocis has developed a reputation for transforming sales teams into consistent top performers and aligning culture with long term growth. At Aptean, he is responsible for global business operations and customer success, helping guide the company’s continued expansion as a leading provider of industry specific enterprise software solutions.Melissa Robinson-Winemiller – Keynote Speaker and Author of The Empathic Leader: How EQ via Empathy Transforms Leadership for Better Profit, Productivity, and Innovation
AI is not going to fix all of our problems, most especially communication.
Melissa Robinson-Winemiller is an international bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and leadership coach specializing in emotional intelligence and empathy driven leadership. She is the founder and CEO of EQ via Empathy, where she works with organizations and leaders around the world to make empathy a practical and actionable skill that drives performance, innovation, and culture. Her work focuses on helping leaders translate emotional intelligence into measurable business outcomes, challenging the traditional view of empathy as a soft skill and repositioning it as a core leadership capability. With more than 30 years of leadership and professional experience, Robinson-Winemiller brings a unique blend of real world insight and academic rigor to her work. After an early career in music, she shifted her focus to leadership and organizational development, earning advanced degrees including a doctorate in leadership with a focus on empathy in leadership. She is the author of The Empathic Leader, a book that outlines how leaders can use empathy to improve productivity, strengthen teams, and achieve better business results. Today, she continues to advise executives and teams globally, helping them build more human centered and effective organizations.

March 30, 2026 – ReflexAI Sam Dorison and Leader in Me Sean Covey

Sam Dorison – Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer at ReflexAI
There is no perfect conversation. You can’t avoid landmines at all times.
Sam Dorison is the Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer at ReflexAI. An expert in artificial intelligence strategy and product deployment, Dorison has been involved with AI-powered products in industries ranging from mental health to cybersecurity to smart cities. Before launching ReflexAI, he served as Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people. There, he published five peer-reviewed articles on mental health and oversaw teams including crisis services, training, research, technology, and finance. Dorison previously worked at McKinsey & Company and Harvard Kennedy School. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. He also holds an LL.M. from Cambridge University and a master’s degree from University College London, both as a Marshall Scholar. Beyond ReflexAI, Dorison is heavily involved in causes that support families impacted by cancer. Sam lives in New York City with his husband.Sean Covey – Author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens and President of FranklinCovey Education
Social Development is far more important than academic development.
Sean Covey, President of FranklinCovey Education, is a business executive, best-selling author, speaker, and innovator. Sean is devoted to transforming education throughout the world through a principle-centered leadership approach. Sean directs FranklinCovey’s whole school transformation process, called Leader in Me®, which is now in more than 5,000 schools and 50 countries throughout the world. Sean is New York Times bestselling author and has authored or co-authored several books, including The Wall Street Journal’s #1 Business Bestseller with more than 500,000 copies sold, The 4 Disciplines of Execution, The 6 Most Important Decisions You’ll Ever Make, The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, which has been translated into 30 languages and sold more than eight million copies worldwide. He is a versatile keynoter who regularly speaks to students and adults within schools and organizations and has appeared on numerous radio and TV shows and in print media. Franklin Covey Co today announced the release of a new special 30th anniversary edition of Stephen Covey’s (1932-2012) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which commemorates the timeless wisdom of The 7 Habits for a new generation with the book’s original content along with personal insights at the end of each chapter by Covey’s son, Sean Covey.

March 27, 2026 - Medical Precedure Inventor Dr. Mark Frenkel and Career Propulsion Jeremy Gartner

Dr. Mark Frenkel, MD, MA, FAANS, FCNS – Neurosurgeon Spine Surgeon   
You’ll hate me for five or six weeks, and you’ll say this is the worstdecision you ever made, and you’ll wish you never did it. And thenit’s six weeks, you’ll be neutral, and in three months you’ll be happy.
Dr. Frenkel graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, the medical school of the renowned Cleveland Clinic. His degree was awarded with Honors with a Distinction in Research as a result of research he completed on anterior cervical surgery at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. Subsequently he attended residency at Wake Forest University where he dedicated seven years to mastering the intricacies of neurosurgery under the tutelage of Dr. Charles Branch. Dr. Branch, a luminary in the field, is celebrated for pioneering numerous groundbreaking techniques in spinal surgery. Dr. Frenkel’s other mentors and teachers included Neurosurgeons trained at some of the most renowned institutions in the world, including Harvard and Johns Hopkins. He performed thousands of complex procedures during his training, culminating in the extraordinary privilege of being appointed Chief Resident for two consecutive years – a rarity in the field. Dr. Frenkel had one of the highest Neurosurgery Board scores in the country and in 2018 won the Congress of Neurological Surgery’s SANS Challenge – an annual national tournament of neurosurgical knowledge. Following his training, he was offered the opportunity to join Neuroscience and Spine Associates (NASA), one of the premiere neuroscience practices in the country. He relocated to Naples, Florida where he currently resides with his wife Dr. Lindsay Frenkel, an Intensive Care Physician, and his two young children, Cooper and Chloe. Dr. Frenkel has written numerous articles in the most esteemed neurosurgical publications and authored several textbook chapters on advanced techniques in spinal surgery which underscore his status as an authority in the field. He is recognized worldwide as a leader in spine surgery because of his excellent outcomes. He has several patents pending for new spinal surgery techniques, implants, and minimally invasive retractors. Dr. Frenkel’s expertise has garnered the attention of numerous medical device companies, who seek his invaluable insights for the development of cutting-edge surgical instruments.Jeremy Gartner – Founder of Career Propulsion
From having a very transactional conversation to having ameaningful relationship driven discussion that is going toend up opening doors those jobs, it’s just side effects.
Jeremy Gartner is the Founder of Career Propulsion, where he helps ambitious executives land VP and C-suite roles faster, often securing compensation packages ranging from $250,000 to over $1 million through a proven, data-driven approach. Prior to founding Career Propulsion, he built an unconventional and highly accomplished career, beginning as a particle physicist at CERN, where he conducted high-energy physics research published in leading peer-reviewed journals. He later earned a PhD in Aerospace Engineering while contributing to the development of next-generation military aircraft at Northrop Grumman. Gartner was also groomed for executive leadership at Becton Dickinson, where he led high-impact MedTech initiatives and filed 13 patents, including granted U.S. patents in smart drug delivery, infection control, and medical device technology. Despite often being the least “qualified” candidate on paper, he consistently secured high-profile roles by mastering positioning, trust-building, and career storytelling. Today, through Career Propulsion, a seven-figure coaching firm, he teaches executives how to replicate this success using a proprietary framework that has achieved an 88 percent success rate in placing clients into VP and C-suite roles, with an average salary increase of 65 percent, while providing personalized guidance on navigating hidden job markets and high-level negotiations.

March 26, 2026 – AI Futurist Steve Brown and Sales Catalyst Katie Nelson

Steve Brown – Global Keynote Speaker & AI Futurist. Former executive at Google DeepMind & Intel and Author of The AI Ultimatum: Preparing for a World of Intelligent Machines and Radical Transformation 
AI is an amplifier. It is a way of amplifying human impact.
Steve Brown is a leading voice in the field of artificial intelligence. A former executive at Google, DeepMind and Intel, he has delivered hundreds of information-packed and entertaining keynotes across five continents, inspiring audiences to take action with AI.‍ As a thought leader on AI, generative AI, autonomous agents, digital transformation, and the future impact of AI on business, education, and society, Steve draws on decades of experience in AI and high-tech industries to help leaders craft winning AI strategies that drive innovation, boost productivity, and fuel growth. Over his 25-year career, Steve has held senior leadership roles, including Senior Director and in-house Futurist at Google DeepMind in London and Intel’s Chief Evangelist and Futurist. He is the co-founder of The Provenance Chain Network, a company providing supply chain transparency and security services for the U.S. Space Force, as well as a strategic advisor to two AI startups and a BCG Luminary. Steve works with global brands, Fortune 100 companies, startups, and government agencies. His clients include Nike, JP Morgan, Samsung, Comcast, Audi, PepsiCo, and Disney. He has been featured on major media outlets including BBC, CNN, Bloomberg TV, ABC, CBS, NBC, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired Magazine. In addition to delivering keynote speeches, Steve runs AI innovation workshops that inspire organizations to explore new possibilities with AI. His book, “The Innovation Ultimatum: How Six Strategic Technologies Will Reshape Every Business in the 2020s”, published by Wiley, serves as a practical guide to innovation and digital transformation. Steve’s mission is to help organizations build a better future with AI by creating new customer experiences, streamlining operations, and elevating the workforce. Steve holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Microelectronic Systems Engineering from Manchester University. Born in the UK, he is now a U.S. citizen and lives with his wife in Portland, OR.Katie Nelson  – Founder/CEO of Sales UpRising 
Just don’t find yourself in the wrong room.
Katie Nelson is the dynamic Founder & CEO of Sales UpRising, where she’s widely known as “The Sales Catalyst.” She brings a bold, no-nonsense, and refreshingly honest approach to sales coaching with a single-minded goal: to deliver real results, not fluff. With nearly three decades of sales experience, Katie is a three-time business owner who has helped hundreds of small businesses accelerate their revenue trajectories, especially those stuck under the $250K mark, a milestone she considers a proof of concept. Katie’s philosophy is simple: cashflow is oxygen for your business. Without sales, there’s no revenue, and without revenue, there’s no business. She believes that every everyday action—posting on social, chatting, sending a message—is a step toward a sales goal. She excels in teaching sales as authentic, human-centered conversations, helping clients break free from the “five-figure rut” by focusing on relationship-driven, high-impact sales tactics rather than expensive marketing misfires. In addition to coaching, Katie delivers keynote presentations that combine entertainment and strategic insights, and hosts Top 6 mastermind sessions, consulting, and speaking events designed to help business owners boost cash flow and scale sustainably.

March 25, 2026 – Airline Owner Andrew Schmertz Jim Goes on a Rant about Tim Ferriss

Andrew Schmertz – CEO and Co-founder of Hopscotch Air
You can’t just show up in this industry and hope that they come.Can’t build it and they will come that doesn’t work.
Andrew has more than a decade of experience in the aviation industry, having co-founded Hopscotch Air, Inc. As CEO, he manages all aspects of the business, including sales, marketing, and regulatory issues. Previously, Andrew had an extensive career in media, serving as an anchor/report for Business Week TV where he anchored business reports for WABC and WLS-TV. He currently is the chairman of the charter committee of the National Air Transportation Association, the industry trade group of private aviation. Andrew is a Board member of Air Taxi Services and Support, a charter airplane marketplace. He has served on the FAA Aviation Rule Making Committee, advising the government of duty and rest time revisions. And he serves as an independent arbitrator with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, where he has developed significant knowledge of securities law. Andrew is an attorney, licensed in New York, and a licensed pilot, with land, instrument, and sea ratings.Tim Ferris – Author of 5 #1 NYT/WSJ bestsellers, early-stage investor, Tim Ferriss Show podcast (1B+ downloads), founder of the Saisei Foundation
Tim Ferriss is an American entrepreneur, author, investor, and podcast host best known for his work at the intersection of business, performance, and lifestyle design. He is the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling books, including The 4-Hour Workweek, Tools of Titans, and Tribe of Mentors, which have collectively influenced millions of readers worldwide. Ferriss is also an early-stage technology investor and advisor, with a portfolio that includes companies such as Uber, Facebook, Shopify, Duolingo, and Alibaba, among dozens of others, where he has helped startups scale from early adoption to mainstream growth. His media presence extends through The Tim Ferriss Show, one of the most popular business podcasts globally, which has surpassed one billion downloads and features in-depth interviews with world-class performers across industries. In addition to his work in business and media, Ferriss is the founder of the Saisei Foundation, through which he supports initiatives in mental health, scientific research, and education. His career reflects a progression from entrepreneur and operator to investor, interviewer, and curator of ideas, with a continued focus on optimizing performance, understanding human potential, and exploring meaning and well-being at scale.

March 24, 2026 – Transformation Economy Joseph Pine and Deep Natural Architecture Hugh Massie

Joe Pine – Author, Speaker, Management Advisor, and Author of The Transformation Economy: Guiding Customers to Achieve Their Aspirations
Why you exist as a business is to help people flourish in their lives,to become more and more of who they are meant to be.
Joseph Pine II is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups alike. He is cofounder of Strategic Horizons LLP, a thinking studio dedicated to helping businesses conceive and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings. Mr. Pine’s 2026 book, The Transformation Economy: Guiding Customers to Achieve Their Aspirations, marks a major evolution in his groundbreaking work and presents transformations as the highest form of economic value – guiding customers to become who they want to become. With transformations inputs don’t matter, only the outcomes that customers achieve. It shows businesses how to take advantage of this opportunity by getting into the business of guiding transformations. In 2020 Mr. Pine and his partner James H. Gilmore re-released in hardcover The Experience Economy: Competing for Customer Time, Attention, and Money featuring an all-new Preview to their best-selling 1999 book The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage. The book demonstrates how goods and services are no longer enough; what companies must offer today are experiences – memorable events that engage each customer in an inherently personal way. It further shows that in today’s Experience Economy companies now compete against the world for the time, attention, and money of individual customers. The Experience Economy has been published in fifteen languages and was named one of the 100 best business books of all time by 800ceoread (now Porchlight). Mr. Pine also co-wrote Infinite Possibility: Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier with Kim Korn, Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want with Mr. Gilmore in 2007, and in 1993 published his first book, the award-winning Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition. Each book details Mr. Pine’s breakthrough thinking as he has accurately charted many structural shifts, from individualizing goods to today’s focus on customer experiences and many other changes in the economy and consumer sensibility. The economic competitive reality of the future is fast-paced change. Mr. Pine helps clients design strategies to leverage these new economic opportunities and create experiences that drive revenue. Since revolutionizing the way we should approach and think about business with The Experience Economy, Joseph Pine has continued to be at the forefront as a thought leader. He wrote his second op-ed page article for The Wall Street Journal, “Inflation and the Experience Economy“, in the January 6, 2022 newspaper, and his co-authored piece, “The ‘New You’ Business“, in the January-February 2022 Harvard Business Review was his fifth for the journal. In his speaking and teaching activities, Mr. Pine has addressed the World Economic Forum, the original TED conference, and the Consumer Electronics Show. A former Visiting Scholar with the MIT Design Lab, he is currently a Lecturer with the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, and has also taught at Penn State, Duke Corporate Education, the University of Minnesota, UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management, and the Harvard Design School. He serves on the editorial boards of Strategy & Leadership and Strategic Direction and is a Senior Fellow with both the Design Futures Council and the European Centre for the Experience Economy, which he co-founded. Mr. Pine’s experiences prior to co-founding Strategic Horizons include holding a variety of technical and managerial positions with IBM.Hugh Massie – Executive Chairman and Founder of DNA Behavior International
We don’t want to change who the core of a person is, butwe want them to know how to adapt depending on whothey’re dealing with and in what situation.
Hugh Massie is the Executive Chairman and Founder of DNA Behavior International – the Behavior and Money Insights Company. As a Titan 100 CEO and widely recognized Behavioral Solutions Architect, Hugh Massie addresses every opportunity and challenge from the proven perspective of “behavior makes money”. With his unique analytical approach, Hugh helps growth-minded leaders create an Exponential Future by building “category king” people-centric businesses, and in the process, enhance financial decision-making, culture, and performance. Hugh’s purpose is to empower people worldwide to optimize the alignment of their natural “hard wired” talents and financial behaviors to make quantum leaps for creating an Exponential Future with reduced stress. Thereby enabling greater happiness, more success and improved health for longer. Applying the pioneering behavioral finance research Hugh has undertaken since 2001, his moonshot  goal is to commercialize DNA Behavior’ AI-driven BeSci Tech Platform so that by 2030 fully it informs over 1 billion people annually on how to enhance their decision-making and relationships for increasing  life, financial and business longevity by 30 or more years. Hugh partners with clients to create an Exponential Future by developing trail-blazing financial behavior  apps for building the “New BeFi Economy” impacting all key areas of life, finance and business.

March 23, 2026 – Blue Skye Financial Rebecca Irey and Supply Chain Dr. Zal Phiroz

Rebecca Irey – Founder and CEO of Blue Skye Financial
As entrepreneurs, we have the ability to move the world the way wewant it to, to break a system and remake it better. That is our superpower.
Rebecca Irey is the founder and CEO of Blue Skye Financial, a national firm on a mission to change the financial trajectory of American families, from dependence on broken systems like debt and Social Security to building true legacy wealth and financial independence. With over 25 years of experience, Rebecca brings a unique mix of straight-talk, heart-centered strategy, and values-based planning that resonates with individuals, families, and business owners alike. She specializes in tax-free retirement, Social Security and Medicare optimization, estate planning, and small business tax strategies, offering practical insight delivered with warmth, humor, and conviction. What sets Rebecca apart is her belief that wealth isn’t just about numbers, it’s about dignity, agency, and living a life you’re proud to pass on. From empowering women in transition to guiding veterans and federal employees through benefit optimization, she’s known for making complex financial decisions simple, meaningful, and actionable. Rebecca also leads one of the most mentorship-driven financial sales teams in the country and has partnered with organizations like Save the Children to align every client win with greater social impact. She’s a passionate educator, an unapologetic truth-teller, and a mom of seven who knows how to lead with both head and heart. Whether she’s talking about how the wealthy play the game differently—or why every family deserves a team of experts—Rebecca will inspire your audience to think bigger, act boldly, and build a financial future they believe in.Dr. Zal Phiroz – Supply Chain & Data Science Professor and Fortune 500 Consultant
The nature of a supply chain is to change and to adapt andto be flexible in certain ways so that it can survive the constantlychanging environments that it’s put into.
Dr. Zal Phiroz, a global supply chain expert and business leader who has worked at the highest levels of industry and academia. He spent years at Procter & Gamble leading major international projects and partnerships with retailers such as Walmart, Tesco, and Walgreens. He is the co-founder and president of Pier Consulting Group and currently teaches graduate-level Supply Chain Management at Harvard University. Dr. Phiroz is also a frequent speaker at international forums including TEDx and the United Nations in Canada, where he shares insights on global logistics, sustainability, and the future of supply chains. Dr. Zal Phiroz is a powerful business leader and established industry specialist in marketing and global supply chain practices, within the fast moving consumer goods and IT industry. Zal has held a number of executives, senior management and senior advisory roles including time spent with Proctor & Gamble and TELUS. He currently teaches Supply Chain Management (Masters Level) at Harvard University. With an established foundation in IT and management, Zal led a number of international special projects at Procter & Gamble, including $100M+ projects on shrink, Wal-Mart capacity optimization, Tide product concentration, IAMS demand projection, and recall. In addition to leading an exploratory team tasked with overseeing global P&G innovation, Zal contributed to the Folgers divestiture, Gillette merger, and managed cross-functional special project partnerships with major retailers including Wal-Mart, Shoppers Drug Mart, Tesco, CVS, and Walgreens. As the co-founder and President of Pier Consulting Group Inc., Zal is responsible for direct collaboration with medium sized corporations, leading academic institutions, and federal charities on sustainability, macro marketing, and management and coordination of all supply-chain and operations projects. Major projects have included management of international consumer marketing research, aggregate data analysis on competitive markets, growth opportunity quantification, and optimization of supply chain coordination. A dynamic public speaker, Mr. Phiroz is a regularly invited to guest lecture at various Universities on topics relating to Supply Chain Management. He has also spoken at TEDx, UN Canada, OPAL (Chicago, Newport, Toronto), and currently instructs graduate-level Supply Chain Management at Harvard University.

March 20, 2026 – Furniture.com Co-founder Alex Seaman and AI Transactions Attorney Spencer Rubin

Alexandra Seaman – Senior Vice President at Furniture.com
That’s really the problem we’re solving is this decision fatigue.
Alexandra Seaman is the Senior Vice President at Furniture.com, where she plays a key role in shaping the company’s growth, brand strategy, and digital customer experience. With a strong background in e-commerce, partnerships, and marketplace development, she has helped position Furniture.com as a leading online destination that connects consumers with a wide network of furniture retailers and brands. Throughout her career, Alexandra has focused on building scalable platforms that simplify the shopping experience while delivering value to both consumers and partners. At Furniture.com, she has been instrumental in expanding strategic relationships, enhancing the platform’s user experience, and driving initiatives that bridge the gap between traditional furniture retail and modern digital discovery. Known for her collaborative leadership style and sharp understanding of consumer behavior, Alexandra brings a forward-thinking approach to the evolving home furnishings industry. Her work centers on leveraging data, technology, and partnerships to create a seamless path from inspiration to purchase, helping customers find the right products while enabling retailers to reach broader audiences.Spencer Rubin – Associate Attorney at GRELLAS SHAH
You can even talk the algorithm into giving you a higher score based onthe prompts that you give it, because it’s trying to appease you.
Spencer Rubin is an Associate Attorney at Grellas Shah LLP, where he focuses on advising startups and established companies on the legal complexities surrounding artificial intelligence, technology transactions, and data governance. His practice centers on helping clients navigate AI governance, intellectual property strategy, and privacy compliance, particularly within high stakes commercial agreements and mergers and acquisitions. Spencer has developed a strong reputation for structuring and negotiating agreements involving data ownership, model rights, and the licensing of AI driven solutions. He works closely with both vendors and customers to ensure that contracts reflect not only legal protections but also practical business outcomes. Known for his ability to translate complex legal frameworks into clear, actionable guidance, he serves as a trusted advisor to companies operating at the intersection of innovation and regulation. In addition to his legal practice, Spencer is an active voice in the evolving conversation around AI and the law. He regularly writes and speaks on emerging issues in the field, including presentations at major global events such as SXSW Austin and SXSW Sydney, where he shares insights on how businesses can responsibly and effectively adopt artificial intelligence technologies.

March 19, 2026 – E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Sam Goodner and Financial Product Sales Trainer Jim Effner

Sam Goodner – Entrepreneur, Angel Investor, Keynote Speaker and Author of Like Clockwork: Run Your Business with Swiss Army Precision
The formula for operational scalability is clarity plus repeatability plus time.
Sam Goodner is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and mentor with a passion for solving business problems through the innovative use of technology. A dual citizen of Switzerland and the United States, Sam has experienced a diverse journey from serving as a mountain infantry officer in the Swiss Army to being recognized as an Inc. 500 CEO and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. In 1993, Sam founded Catapult Systems, which grew into the world’s leading Microsoft Systems Integrator before being acquired in 2013. During this same period, he also founded and sold two software product companies (PowerDOC and Inquisite), started a mobile application development firm (Mobile Alchemy), and launched a digital agency (Slingrock). A global traveler and lifelong learner, Sam took his family on a year-long journey around the world in 2014, homeschooling his two children while embracing education and exploration. In 2016, Sam invested in FlashParking, a small technology startup. As president and later chief strategy officer, he helped guide the company to becoming the largest parking technology company in the world with over $100 million in revenue and a valuation of $1 billion. Now retired from running companies, Sam focuses on sharing his insights with entrepreneurs and business leaders.Jim Effner – President & CEO of P2P Group
You never want to be selling you always want to be solving problems.
Jim Effner is founder and President of P2P Group, a company specializing in sales training for financial services professionals. His mission is to help bridge the gap between financial advisors’ potential and their performance. Prior to forming the P2P Group, Jim was Managing Partner of one of the largest Northwestern Mutual offices in the country. He built the Effner Financial Group to nearly 150 full-time and college advisors, insuring over 65,000 policyholders with a face amount of nearly $27 billion. A Million Dollar Round Table qualifier every year he worked in the business, Jim is now a lifetime member of MDRT. He was a three-time Recognition Dinner/Forum qualifier, which represents the top 5% of all Northwestern Mutual advisors. In fact, he was the youngest person to make Forum the first two times he qualified. As a new advisor, he led his region in 1990, 1991 and 1992, placing runner-up in the Bronze and Silver awards, and 3rd in the Gold. Jim has overcome numerous life challenges, including losing his hearing just 30 days after taking his Managing Partner contract. He brings his commitment to excellence, his passion, energy and conviction – along with his perspective of 30+ years in the industry – to every aspect of his business. A graduate of Valparaiso University with a degree in finance and economics, Jim has exemplary credentials in all facets of the industry – including sales, management and training. Jim and his wife, Lynn, live in Henderson, Nevada. They have three children: Brittney, Brianna, and Bryce.