School for Startups Radio

January 3, 2024 - Better Teams David B. Greenspan and UCB Chief Innovation & Entrepreneurship Officer Dr. Richard Lyons

David B. Greenspan – Founder and Chief Growth Officer of BLUECASE and Author of Be a Better Team by Friday: A Playbook for High-Performance Business Leaders
Our marketing is through referrals. We have had some remarkablesuccess stories. Four of the companies we work with crossed the billiondollar threshold while working with us.
David B. Greenspan is the Founder and Chief Growth Officer of BLUECASE, Co-Author of Be a Better Team by Friday David B. Greenspan, Ph.D., is the founder and Chief Growth Officer of BLUECASE Strategic Partners, a leadership development, strategic planning, and executive coaching consultancy headquartered in Austin, TX. Founded in 2014, BLUECASE drives strategic planning and leads managers and executives at fast-growing companies on how to create seamless cross-functional collaboration, feedback-rich cultures, and high levels of engagement. David is the co-author of the Amazon best-selling book, Be a Better Team by Friday: A Playbook for High-Performance Business Leaders. The book is a guide for CEOs and Executives to scale company growth and create a streamlined team culture with seven proven practices focused on achieving remarkable results. David holds a PH.D. in High-Performance Psychology with expertise in why certain individuals and teams perform at exceptional levels, even in suboptimal circumstances. An expert in creating high-performance corporate cultures and teams, he is an energizing leader, coach, and facilitator known for his capacity to galvanize groups to generate breakthrough results. David has over fifteen years of experience working with senior executives at Fortune 100 companies and executive teams of fast-growing PE-backed companies.Dr. Richard Lyons – Chief Innovation & Entrepreneurship Officer at UC Berkeley 
Pitchbook puts out data on which universities across the world areproducing the most venture funded startups and UC Berkeley was #1!
Dr. Rich Lyons currently serves in UC Berkeley’s Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research (VCRO) as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also a Professor of Economics and Finance at the Haas School of Business, where he served as dean from 2008 to 2018. In his VCRO role, Lyons oversees development of the campus-wide ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship, including patenting and technology licensing. In 2023 he was appointed by the President of the 10-campus University of California system to chair the new President’s Council for Entrepreneurship, which will focus on the biggest opportunities for ecosystem development system-wide. As dean of the Haas School, Lyons led a sweeping culture initiative that drove the school’s historic strengths more deeply into admissions and other critical processes with a set of four Defining Leadership Principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself. He oversaw the development of Connie & Kevin Chou Hall—a new academic building funded entirely by alumni and friends—as well as attracting eight of the 10 largest gifts in school history. Lyons forged stronger ties with other UC Berkeley colleges and departments, a path he called structural interdisciplinarity, with a focus on dual degree programs combining business with STEM fields, including the new Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology program with Berkeley Engineering. In 2018, he was awarded with the Berkeley Citation, given to individuals whose contributions to UC Berkeley go beyond the call of duty and whose achievements exceed the standards of excellence in their fields. Lyons also received the Distinguished Teaching Award, Berkeley’s highest teaching honor, in 1998. Lyons’ research and teaching are mostly in international finance, though his more recent work explores how business leadership drives innovation and the importance of culture in shaping organizations, including vis-a-vis equity and belonging. From 2006 to 2008, he took a leave from Berkeley to serve as Goldman Sachs’ Chief Learning Officer, focusing on leadership development for managing directors. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1993, he was an assistant professor at Columbia Business School. He received his BS in finance from Berkeley and PhD in economics from MIT.

December 22, 2023 - IBM AI Pushing Sustainability Oday Abbosh and #1 RE Agent in NYC Ilan Bracha

Oday Abbosh- Global Sustainability Leader at IBM
At IBM, we say that people will leverage AI to do a better job, rather thanit being the other way around. We always believe there needs to be somelevel of human oversight.
With any super powerful technology like AI, having some framework, havingsome sensible guardrails is clearly the smart thing to do.
Oday joined IBM Consulting as the Global Sustainability leader in August 2023, bringing extensive experience in scaling businesses and a background in management consulting. Before joining IBM, Oday was the Founder & CEO of Better All Round (BAR), a B-Corp certified, innovative, ESG-focused diversified fiber-based business. Under his leadership, BAR launched the Ora Household Towel, a revolutionary product developed from initial concept to market within a year. Before launching BAR, Oday worked for over 20 years as a management consultant, starting his career at KPMG before moving to Accenture, where he held various leadership roles. At Accenture, Oday served as Global Head of Media & Entertainment, Global Head of Business Consulting for Communications, Media, and high Tech, and Global Go-to-Market Lead of Accenture’s Analytics business. Throughout his career, Oday has built strong teams and alliances while serving clients worldwide. In addition to his professional achievements, Oday has served as an advisor to several innovative start-ups and as a founding mentor for Henkel X.Ilan Bracha – Founder and CEO at IB Global
There is a supply and demand issue with Israeli real estate. There is hugedemand. With the war it stopped, but then people from around the worldhave been buying properties. They are trying to support Israel in a way.
CEO and Founder Ilan Bracha is the founder of IB Global and The Bracha Team, a real estate brokerage advisory team in NYC. Long considered a mega broker in the Manhattan luxury real estate market, Ilan has done nearly $10 billion in sales and has established an impressive global network of clients with asset portfolios valued at more than $100 billion. He has been named the #1 broker in New York—and the #2 in the nation overall—by The Wall Street Journal. Ilan has appeared on numerous TV networks such as CNBC, has been quoted widely in the media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Real Deal, former board of director for REBNY, and is a frequent presenter and consultant to major institutions in both NYC and Israel. With over 25 years of experience, IB Global Residential Real Estate Funds specializes in investment opportunities within the residential real estate sector. We leverage our extensive network and expertise to identify and capitalize on high-yielding residential properties. Our funds provide investors with access to a diversified portfolio of high-quality residential assets, delivering attractive returns and long-term growth.

December 20, 2023 - Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat Colin C. Campbell and Leaders Edge HR Huntsman

Colin C. Campbell – Serial Founder and Author of Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.: Serial Entrepreneurs’ Secrets Revealed!
There are things you can do in your startup to raise money from yourcustomers. 90% of Inc 5000 companies do not take venture capital. Venturecapital is not a panacea. 75% of venture capital companies fail.
Colin C. Campbell has been a serial entrepreneur for over 30 years and is the author of Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.: Serial Entrepreneurs’ Secrets Revealed! He has founded and scaled various internet companies that collectively have reached a valuation of almost $1 billion. Having successfully navigated the exits of companies like Tucows Interactive, Internet Direct Canada, Hostopia, GeeksForLess, and .CLUB Domains, Campbell has not only cemented his name as a start-up expert but has also collected an array of accolades – including spots on the Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000 rosters for several years in a row. A sought-after speaker in the world of entrepreneurship, Campbell has spoken at several high-profile universities and events. He also leads Startup Club, with almost one million members continuing to share his experiences as he interviews experts, authors, and serial entrepreneurs.HR Huntsman – Founder of Leaders Edge 
The kind of leadership that we train has to have some compassion around it.It has to also have an energy for proactivity. There has to be a strength anda vision of the future. We have to be able to see where we’re going andmove people in that direction.
After retiring from his first company that he founded at 28, HR Huntsman has quickly developed a reputation for being an exceptional organizational strategist and executive coach. HR’s genius is his ability to see both the cultural and strategic sides of an organization. HR has helped transform dozens of companies by helping them scale their size as well as strengthen their teams. HR is passionate about helping leaders get the time freedom and financial freedom they desire. He began a non-profit organization from scratch when I was twenty-eight and over the course of twenty-two years, with a lot of beautiful people, we grew it into a profound, life changing organization. Over the span of those two decades, along with incredible work in our own communities, we drilled wells in Kenya, built orphanages in Uganda and India, followed hurricanes Katrina and Ike and so much more. All around the world I was privileged to witness, first-hand, the power of great leadership. He firmly believes to succeed one must begin with mindset, then move on to principles and disciplines which create long term success for a company or individual. HR is an accomplished speaker having given roughly 4000 talks to approximately 400k people around the world. His passion to help others enjoy life more fully has never wavered.

December 18, 2023 - Design Guru Won J. You and Ivybrook Academy Founder Drew McWilliams

Won J. You – Design Expert – Founder and Head of Design of Won J. You Studios
Rather than saying, “I need to be inspired to create something wonderful.”Just start doing the work. Slowly, your brain is subconsciously adjusting andsynthesizing, even when you sleep. Some ideas will start to spring forth.
Won J. You is a seasoned design leader and educator who’s spent over 20 years designing and creating award-winning experiences. Currently, he leads the charge at WJY Studios, as chief disruptor and designer for social impact. He is inspired by creating immersive experiences and creating elegant and engaging products. In his past, Won has led innovation efforts as design director at Discovery Communications, where he successfully incubated, patented, and launched products such as curiosity.com. More recently, he’s directed experience design work for Porsche, Edward Jones, Alzheimer’s Association, Bic, Cedar Fair, among others. His work has been featured in Commarts, .net Magazine and recognized by W3 awards and numerous others.Drew McWilliams – Co-Founder of Ivybrook Academy 
The secret to selling a house is honesty and integrity. Not trying to sellpeople. Same with franchising. People don’t want to be sold. If you treatpeople like a real human being, being transparent, but present theopportunity that the opportunity could go away. The opportunitywill not be there forever.
Drew McWilliams is a dynamic speaker who has successfully transferred his wealth from being in real estate since age 19 to that of being the Co-Founder of the 9th largest preschool company in North America. In 2007, Drew and his wife founded Ivybrook Academy, a thriving network of children’s pre-schools. Under his leadership, Ivybrook Academy has flourished, expanding to 80 locations across 17 states in the U.S.. Ivybrook has also secured a place on Entrepreneur Magazine’s prestigious list of top 500 companies. On the real estate side, Drew brings over 20 years of real estate expertise to the table, having served as a licensed broker with a staggering $100 million in successful transactions. With his experience as a real estate professional, he is passionate about educating others on the opportunities available with passive real estate investing. While Drew’s professional achievements are nothing short of extraordinary, he finds balance and fulfillment in his personal life. He calls Charlotte, North Carolina, home, where he resides with his wife, Jennifer, their two children, and their beloved Bernese Mountain dog, Maple. Beyond the boardroom, Drew is a die hard weekly golfer, enjoys coaching his son’s ice hockey team, bleeding black & gold for his Pittsburgh Steelers, taking trips with his wife, and educating others & creating value in the world everyday. Drew’s passion for entrepreneurship is evident in his relentless pursuit of innovative business solutions and strategies. Drew is a staunch advocate for small business ownership and the franchising model. Drew McWilliams is a true embodiment of vision, leadership, and entrepreneurship, leaving an enduring legacy in both the business and education realms and he would love to share his experience with your audience. Some additional topics he would love to share with your audience: What do you do in the 2nd half of your career: passive real estate income Aligning Passion and Profit Rags to Riches: growing up in a mobile home to hitting the Entrepreneur Top 500 list How to run a business with your wife and stay happily married Scaling With Integrity.

December 15, 2023 - Price Negotiating Claire Stepanek and LA Times Columnist & TV Writer Doug McIntyre

Claire Stepanek – founder and CEO of ergo – Pricing Platform 
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Claire Stepanek is the founder and CEO of ergo, a startup developing pricing software that gives consumers an option to negotiate pricing with retailers through an online software plugin. Stepanek came up with the idea for ergo while working on the supply chain team at Apple, which manages the vendors that make the parts that flow into Apple products, where she found the most successful strategy for often negatively labeled “stressful negotiations” was to be authentic and keep it simple. Claire and ergo’s vision is to build out analytics for stores so they can gain value while also boosting revenue and sales and learning about the market. The company is also working to get products and features out for the impending holiday shopping season.Doug McIntyre – Long-time Columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News and Orange County Register and Author of Frank’s Shadow
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Doug McIntyre is the long-time columnist for the Southern California News Group which includes the Los Angeles Daily News and Orange County Register, as well as the creator of Red Eye Radio heard nationally on hundreds of radio stations. He also hosted a successful show on WABC in New York City and the long-running “McIntyre in the Morning” on KABC in Los Angeles. A television and film writer/producer, McIntyre has written for all the major networks, including the hit series, Married… With Children, WKRP in Cincinnati, Full House, Mike Hammer, and the award-winning PBS series, Liberty’s Kids. As an emcee, Doug has hosted evenings with Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, President George W. Bush, Betty White, Misty Copeland, John Cleese, John Glenn, Ken Burns, Malala Yousafzai, Colin Powell, Robert Redford, and many others. Doug and his wife, actress/writer Penny Peyser, wrote/directed and produced the award-winning documentary, Trying to Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon. New York-born and raised, Doug and Penny live in Los Angeles.

December 13, 2023 - Largest E-Recycler John Shegerian and Hire Better Now Kolby Goodman

ohn Shegerian – Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of ERI, Co-Founder of FinancialAid.com and Author of The Insecurity of Everything: How Hardware Data Security is Becoming the Most Important Topic in the World
We can recover about 98% of the commodities (shredded steel, shreddedplastic, aluminum, copper, gold, silver, lead, and some others) that comefrom recycling your cell phone, laptop or television.
I’m going to give it to you straight. There ain’t no shortcuts.The harder I work, the luckier I get.
John Shegerian is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of ERI. John Shegerian creates profitable impact companies that make the world a better place. Goldman Sachs recently named Shegerian one of the “100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2021” at its annual Builders + Innovators Summit. He was also recently named one of the planet’s “Top 100 Recycling Stars” by Recycling International Magazine. A serial entrepreneur responsible for co-founding Homeboy Industries, FinancialAid.com, Engage, and many other impactful organizations – Shegerian currently serves as co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of ERI, the largest cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction and electronic waste recycling company in the United States. Shegerian is also a sought-after speaker, panelist, and electronic recycling, cybersecurity, and ITAD industry authority. Annually he speaks across the world in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. He has also authored or been featured in articles on the industry for Recycling Today, Resource Recycling, Waste360 and various business journals and regularly provides his expert knowledge to news media, including CNBC, BBC News, TIME, Fortune, Forbes, Washington Post, Newsweek (multiple times), The International Business Times (multiple times), Security Ledger, GreenBiz, LifeWire, City & State New York, Los Angeles Business Journal, IEEE Spectrum, Alternative Energy Magazine, Business Insider Africa and VerdeXChange News among many others. He is co-author of The Insecurity of Everything (a #1 best-seller on Amazon) and 101 Tips from the Marketing Masters: Ways to Supercharge Your Marketing & Exponentially Grow Your Business, both best-sellers on Amazon in their respective categories. Shegerian earned a certification in Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the Information Age from Harvard University and has completed the MIT Sloan Cybersecurity program. Shegerian also hosts Impact with John Shegerian, a weekly podcast featuring conversations with some of the greatest business minds and thought leaders on the planet. The podcast is available for listening on ImpactPodcast.com, Apple’s iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Spotify, libsyn, and as part of iHeartRadio’s digital broadcast, reaching over 120 million users. Recent guests have included leaders from Verizon, Best Buy, Samsung, General Motors, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, JetBlue, Comerica Bank, Goodyear Tire, Virgin, Dell, GE, IBM, Qualcomm, Ben & Jerry’s, Texas Instruments, Timberland, UPS, Hertz, The Hershey Company, FedEx, Intel, NVIDIA, T. Rowe Price, New York City, Beyond Meat, Panasonic, EPAM, Molson Coors, Seventh Generation, the NBA, the US Tennis Association, Waste Management, and a number of fascinating game-changers, including Martin Luther King III; best-selling author Ryan Holiday; Homeboy Industries founder Father Gregory Boyle; real estate powerhouse and television personality Ryan Serhant; writer/comedian/author Jeannie Gaffigan; ultra-endurance athlete Rich Roll; and hundreds more. No stranger to “recycling lives” and serving up second chances, in 1993 Shegerian co-founded Homeboy Tortillas and Homeboy Industries, which continues to serve as a paradigm for urban renewal in America. Shegerian is also the creator of the popular Bulldog Root Beer brand, which he launched in 1997. Shegerian then co-founded FinancialAid.com, filling the financial aid gap for higher education and generating one of the most successful student loan companies in the country. Shegerian founded Addicted.com in 2005, one of the largest web resources for individuals seeking help for addictions online. The website boasts a database of over 20,000 addiction centers across the United States. He is also co-founder of RecycleNation, a dynamic recycling and green living resource that simplifies the recycling process on a national level with a comprehensive, interactive recycling location database. Shegerian is also the co-founder and CMO of The Marketing Masters, a digital marketing and web development company that builds effective, ROI-driven marketing campaigns for businesses large and small. He is also Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Engage, a web-based platform designed to digitize the process of booking talent online for unique personalized appearances. Shegerian was named the Clean Tech Entrepreneur of the Year for Northern California by Ernst & Young and was officially named to City & State New York’s prestigious “Responsible 100” list last year. This year, he received New York City’s “Above & Beyond” Innovator Award.Kolby Goodman – Founder of BestFirstNow – Candidate Experience & Hiring Consultant 
If you ever encounter fear or imposter syndrome when sending out aninvoice or asking for a dollar amount, don’t look it as I’m getting paidfor what I do instead remember you get paid for the impact and valueyou bring. When you are clear about that to yourself and your customer,that’s when things really take off.
Kolby Goodman is the founder of the hiring consulting firm, BestFirstNow. He helps highly educated owner-operators, including doctors, dentists, veterinarians, attorneys, CPAs, architects, and so many more, stop hiring “average” candidates and start hiring Impactful Problem Solvers. After a decade of placing over 5,000 high-achieving professionals in their dream roles, Kolby experienced the full spectrum of interview horror stories and the countless ways well-meaning leaders were unintentionally driving away top talent. Kolby partners with struggling leaders to discover what exactly they want out of their next rockstar employee, proactively attract ideal candidates, better predict how interview performance translates to job performance, and onboard new hires quickly and efficiently. On top of being featured on CBS News, LinkedIn, The Huffington Post, and LA Weekly, Kolby has also partnered with Panasonic, Marriot Hotels, Thermo Fisher Scientific, American Diabetes Association, SHRM, several universities and schools, national professional organizations and nonprofits to provide tailored workshops on optimizing the hiring process, effective leadership, and employee engagement. And now, he is ready to share his experience and expertise with your audience.

December 11, 2023 - AI for Better Games Michael Puscar and Right Fit André Martin

Michael Puscar – Founder of NPCx.ai
Our business model is a very common AI model. Whether it’s frauddetection or whatever it is. Take something that is manual and tediousand do it automatically and faster with higher precision.We just do that for video games.
Michael Puscar is the founder and CEO of NPCX.ai and a serial entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist who has successfully built three high-tech startups from scratch and taken them through to exit. Michael is a published data scientist and expert in artificial intelligence technology, with 3 patents awarded for his groundbreaking work in the area. His latest venture, NPCx, aims to use AI to make characters more realistic in video games and animated films. Michael creates hyper-realistic NPCs (Non-Player Characters) and redefines traditional methods of character creation and animation. He is a serial entrepreneur, investor, technologist, and published data scientist who has spent 30 years building cutting-edge applications that challenge existing technological paradigms. He has three patents (one of which is still pending) for his groundbreaking work in AI and machine learning. As a serial entrepreneur, Michael has had three prior startup exits and three patents.André Martin – Chief Talent & Learning Officer and Author of Wrong Fit, Right Fit: Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever
The easiest way to get the right person for your company is to be honestabout who you are and how you get work done. I would love to seecompanies get away from these poetic, beautiful aspirational versionson their career websites. At some point the person coming to join yourcompany is going to need the truth about how it feels to work there.
André Martin, PhD, has held key senior leadership, advisory, and board roles dedicated to employee engagement and culture in some of the biggest consumer brands in the world including Target, Nike, Google, Mars Incorporated, and Disney. Whether his teams were unleashing the potential of Target’s 350,000 employees by helping to build a more purpose-driven culture, activating a consumer-focused digital transformation at Nike by delivering a more value-driven, leader-led culture, or building a principle-led culture at Mars that resulted in five consecutive Gallup Great Place to Work awards, André’s mission has always been to help make growth companies as engaging as the consumer brands they create. When he isn’t helping companies thrive, Andre is a guest lecturer at top universities on design thinking and innovation, a committed husband and father of two wonderful children, an owner of a sustainable mushroom farm in the Ozark Mountains, and can otherwise be found hiking the rain-soaked trails around Portland with his two English labs (Bode and the Fonz). His new 5-star book, “Wrong Fit, Right Fit,” was published by IT Rev Press in Sept. 2023.

December 8, 2023 - Hypothesis Comment on any Content Dan Whaley and Ahara Personalized Nutrition & The RealReal Julie Wainwright

Dan Whaley – CEO and Founder of Hypothesis
Hypothesis is a super old idea that we should all have the ability tocollaborate and have a conversation over anything you come into contact with.
Dan Whaley is CEO and founder of Hypothesis, a mission-driven organization that has developed an open-source platform that enables anyone to annotate or comment on any online piece of content. Users can use it to discuss key points, collaborate over content, find others with common interests, organize research, or take personal notes. Dan is a coder and early pioneer in web innovation when he created, back in 1995, the first online travel reservation company on the web. Dan currently serves as a director of Sauce Labs, the leading open-source functional testing company, and Getaround, a peer-to-peer car-sharing company. Since 2011 he has been at the front of Hypothesis. Launched the online travel industry in 1994, with the first SaaS company, GetThere. GetThere went public in 1999 and was sold to Sabre in 2000 with nearly 600 employees while processing approximately 50% of travel transacted online. Dan currently serves as a director of Sauce Labs, the leading open-source functional testing company, and Getaround, a peer-to-peer car-sharing company. He is a Shuttleworth Fellow.Julie Wainwright – CEO and Co-Founder of Ahara, Founder of The RealReal
Ideas aren’t really anything, it’s execution. Just make it happen.
Serial CEO Julie Wainwright is building a new business after departing The RealReal last year. Her new venture, a nutrition technology company called Ahara. Ahara provides consumers with at-home tests that reveal health information like the levels of key nutrients in the blood and how healthy cells are, according to Melina Jampolis, physician and co-founder. Ahara then creates personalized nutrition plans for consumers based on their health data. In the emerging nutrition technology ecosystem, Ahara could benefit from Wainwright’s experience in the consumer tech industry. Over her 44-year career, Wainwright has worked as the CEO for seven companies, including software company Berkeley Systems for three years beginning in 1994, online video store Reel for two years beginning in 1997, photo-editing software company Bellamax for three years beginning in 2003 and wellness site SmartNow for three years beginning in 2008. Most recently, she founded The RealReal, a luxury consignment marketplace, in 2011 and worked as chief executive until June 2022. In that time, she grew The RealReal into a household name worth $2.39 billion in 2019. Its value has since fallen to $173 million due to competition, a lack of profits and a slowdown in the luxury goods market, according to SeekingAlpha. Wainwright abruptly left the company last year. The executive has had her share of corporate challenges. As the chief executive of Pets.com, a pet supplies retailer, Wainwright took the company public in 2000 before shuttering it just nine months later. A flawed business model and the dot-com bubble, in which investors flooded money into internet companies, contributed to the failure of Pets.com. The company’s public failure limited Wainwright’s job options, which led her to start her own company, she said in an interview with Forbes in 2021 when it named her in its “50 Over 50” list. After taking time off and working a few jobs, Wainwright founded SmartNow in 2008, but it didn’t stick. Then came The RealReal. She wasn’t afraid of failing because she had already experienced that with Pets.com, and it made her a stronger person, she said. Wainwright hasn’t detailed why she left The RealReal, aside from saying it was time for a new generation to lead the company. But her latest move in founding Ahara suggests she hasn’t given up on her ability to grow a business. Founded by Wainwright and Jampolis, Ahara launched in beta on June 6. The company name comes from the Sanskrit word referring to “pure food” and nourishment. Consumers answer questions about their diet, food sensitivities and medical history to inform their nutrition plan. They can also participate in biological testing that includes genetic, epigenetic and biomarker tests that provide more data. An algorithm, which is patent-pending, creates the nutrition recommendations. A consumer ends up with recipes, shopping lists and a menu-scan option for dining out. Individualization is necessary because consumers have different nutrient and dietary requirements based on their lifestyle, medications, biology and environment, Ahara claims. The technology is backed by more than 300 scientific studies, according to the company. Before launching Ahara, Jampolis was Wainwright’s doctor. “As a patient of Dr. Melina (Jampolis), I experienced first-hand the positive impact of her approach to optimal health,” Wainwright said in a company statement. “I approached Dr. Melina with the idea for a health tech business that would reach millions, and she quickly understood that together we could help everyone achieve optimal health.” Greycroft, a venture capital firm that invested in The RealReal, led Ahara’s funding round. Other investors include the co-founders, entrepreneur Sandy Sholl and San Francisco-based firms Headline and Shakti Capital, according to a company statement. Ahara has eight employees and six medical advisors, according to its website.

December 6, 2023 - Emmy Winning Survivor Producer Maria Baltazzi and Wiring for Wins Gene Kim

Maria Baltazzi – Emmy-winning TV ‘Survivor’ Producer and Author of Take a Shot at Happiness: How to Write, Direct & Produce the Life You Want 
There is a large body of research that supports how gratitude helps youroverall happiness. Realize what you have and be grateful for that.
Maria Baltazzi is a Happiness Explorer. Her experience as an Emmy-winning TV producer, wellbeing teacher, world traveler, and luxury travel designer specializing in transformative adventures has given her a unique lens into conscious living. Maria has developed and produced shows throughout the world. She was one of the original supervising producers of the mega TV hit, Survivor. She is a member of both the Producers and Directors Guilds of America, a Fellow National Member of The Explorers Club, and an Advisor for the Transformational Travel Council. Maria holds an MFA in film from ArtCenter College of Design and a PhD in Conscious-Centered Living from the University of Sedona. Additional studies include Mindfulness Meditation Teaching Training with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, Primordial Sound Meditation Teacher Training from The Chopra Center, Happiness Studies with Tal Ben-Shahar, Positive Neuroplasticity Training with Rick Hanson, Spiritual Psychology with Ron and Mary Hulnick at the University of Santa Monica, Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, the Science of Happiness at the University of Berkley, and an Inner MBA from MindfulNYU.Gene Kim – Founder and CTO of Tripwire, Founder of IT Revolution and Author of Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification
Common principles span all great companies. It all comes down tohow leaders wire their organizations. In high performing organizations,leaders create systems that fully liberate everyone’s creativity andproblem-solving capabilities.
Gene Kim is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, researcher, and multiple award-winning CTO. He has been studying high-performing technology organizations since 1999 and was the founder and CTO of Tripwire for 13 years. He is the author of six books, The Unicorn Project (2019), and co-author of the Shingo Publication Award winning Accelerate (2018), The DevOps Handbook (2016), and The Phoenix Project (2013). His latest book is Wiring the Winning Organization (Nov. 21, 2023). Since 2014, he has been the founder and organizer of DevOps Enterprise Summit, studying the technology transformations of large, complex organizations. In 1999, Kim started his work studying IT organizations, capturing and codifying how high performing organizations have IT operations, security, audit, management, and governance working together to solve common business objectives. Kim co-wrote the “The Visible Ops Handbook: Implementing ITIL in 4 Practical and Auditable Steps” in 2004, and “Visible Ops Security: Achieving Common Security and IT Operations Objectives in 4 Practical Steps” in 2008. Kim was named as a Computer Science Outstanding Alumni in 2007 for “exceptional professional achievements and their success in advancing world technology with the application of computer science”, and as one of Computerworld’s “Forty Technology Innovators Under Forty” in 2007. After Spafford and Kim co-authored Tripwire at Purdue University, Kim co-founded Tripwire, Inc in 1997 with Wyatt Starnes in Portland, Oregon. He served as the CTO there for thirteen years, leaving in July 2010 to become a full-time author and researcher. The company grew from 17 to 75 employees in 1999, and reached over 260 employees and $74 million in revenue by 2009.

December 4, 2023 - AI Smyth OS Alexander De Ridder and Vampr LinkedIn for Creatives Josh Simons

Alexander De Ridder – Co-Founder of CTO of Smyth OS, AI Visionary – Transforming Business Through AI 
With AI, we are not looking at a 10x improvement, we are looking at a100x improvement in terms of Labor savings.
Alexander De Ridder is the Co-Founder and CTO of Smyth which is at the forefront of revolutionizing artificial intelligence systems. Smyth provides the foundational platform, Smyth OS, to bring this future to life for governments and enterprises worldwide. De Ridder, a Houstonian of 20 years, is equal part computer scientist, entrepreneur and marketer. He co-founded and sold multiple multi-million dollar marketing agencies and is a thought leader in both SEO and AI, widely respected for his innovation and vision. He was, for example, the Co-Founder, Visionary, and CTO at Edgy Labs, LLC, a multimillion dollar marketing agency that serves many Fortune 500 companies with an incredible team of experts in SEO. Edgy was acquired by Compass.uol on November 1st, 2021. As a co-founder, Alexander (Or ADR as his team calls him) has worn many hats – project manager, subject matter expert, chief strategist, leader, chief technology officer – but most importantly, he remains the visionary and chief innovator.Josh Simons – Co-Founder, CEO of Vampr
If you go to VamPR.me and scroll to the bottom you can see in real timethe number of people that are making connections. Right now it’s at 8,729,000.
Josh Simons (Co-Founder, CEO) – After discovering how difficult it was to make the appropriate contacts and meet other music industry professionals, Josh created a network that helps independent musicians navigate the modern music landscape to monetize their work. He can share ways on How to Find Opportunities As a Young Musician Today. The world’s largest and most active social-professional network for musicians (often dubbed the “LinkedIn for creatives”). Recognised by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovative Companies in 2022, Vampr is home to over one million users, and active in every country on the planet. The music startup has helped fledgling musicians broker over 8 million connections worldwide. Vampr offers a free solution for young musicians, built by a sympathetic founding team of established musicians with Josh’s co-founder, Baz Palmer, best known as the lead guitarist for seminal hall-of-fame rock band, Hunters & Collectors. Simons has grown Vampr into a multi-award winning platform, including most prestigious nods from both Apple and Google in their respective Best Apps lists. Over five funding rounds the company has raised $3.9M from VC, the crowd and music industry angels. Prior to running Vampr, Josh Simons spent the better part of a decade as a successful artist, songwriter & producer. His artist project Buchanan enjoyed multi-million streams & chart impressions worldwide. They retired from the live circuit following a sold-out arena tour opening for Keith Urban & Carrie Underwood. As a producer and songwriter, Simons has shared credits with Travis Scott, Troye Sivan and Kanye West to name a few. In April 2020 Simons was named in The Music Network’s 30 Under 30 List in addition to being voted Reader’s Choice. Simons holds a Bachelor of Business from Swinburne University.