Uncovering the entrepreneurial journey's of up and coming startup founders, over coffee
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#164 – Landon Campbell | Venture Capital, Community Building, and Chicago Tech
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49:30Landon W. Campbell is the General Manager for Drive Capital in Chicago, a $2.3B venture capital firm committed to investing in exceptional founders who are shaping the future of market-defining companies between the Hudson River and the Rocky Mountains. Landon oversees the firm’s $80M pre-seed fund in Chicago.…
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#163 - Edward Woodford | Crypto, Stablecoins, and the Future of Finance
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41:17Edward Woodford is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zero Hash, a leading crypto and stablecoin infrastructure platform based in Chicago. Since founding the company in 2017, Edward has been at the forefront of transforming the global financial landscape, enabling seamless access to digital assets for companies across industries. Under his leadership, Zero …
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#162 - Thomas Thayyil Thomas | Transforming Deal Strategy Using AI
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51:24TTT is the CEO of Teragonia, specializing in AI-driven analytics and value creation for PE-backed and founder-led middle-market companies. A seasoned M&A strategist with deep expertise in data science, he previously built and led Houlihan Lokey’s financial due diligence and data analytics practices. He has advised corporations, financial sponsors, …
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#161 - Duane Jackson | Investing in Founder-Led Businesses and Building Author Capital Partners
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41:14Duane is the Founder & Managing Partner of Author Capital Partners with 20 years of experience advising and investing in public and private companies. He serves on the boards of SilverIP Communications and ESD Global. Previously, Duane was an investment professional at BDT Capital Partners, focusing on founder- and family-led businesses, and a Priv…
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#160 - Shawn Ellis | Inside a $100M Fund Investing in the Future of Risk
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46:02Shawn Ellis is the Managing Partner of Distributed Ventures. He co-founded and manages the fund. Prior to Distributed Ventures, Shawn built and lead NFP Ventures, a captive early-stage venture fund sponsored by NFP Corp, the diversified insurance brokerage. Shawn’s investment approach leverages diverse operational, strategic and investment experien…
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#159 - Chris Crawford | Making Prescription Drug Costs Affordable
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51:44Chris Crawford founded RxSaveCard to make prescriptions more affordable for employers and employees. With over 25 years in employee benefits, including leadership roles at Mercer and experience in pharmacy benefits, Chris created RxSaveCard to offer cash and discount pricing without requiring a switch in benefit providers. His solution ensures comp…
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#158 - Sean Johnson | Proven Marketing Strategies for Professional Services
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54:57Madison was started by Sean Johnson. For 12 years he was a founding partner at Manifold, an early stage venture fund and innovation consulting firm. For 9 years he taught digital marketing at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.Sean learned the hard way how difficult it can be to market a professional services firm. Much of the playbook he …
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#157 - Samara Hernandez | Journey from Mexico to $52M VC Fund
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53:20Samara Hernandez is the founder of Chingona Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on investing in overlooked and underrepresented founders. Born in Mexico and raised in Rogers Park, Chicago, Samara's early life was marked by her family's hard work and resilience. She earned an engineering degree from the University of Michigan and worked at Gold…
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#156 - Andrew Sykes | The Power of Habits & Building Trust
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51:33Andrew Sykes leads the Habits at Work team and is a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He is also part of the Kellogg Sales Institute Executive Education Team, where he teaches the award-winning course "Entrepreneurial Selling," ranked by Inc. Magazine as one of the "Top Ten" courses in the Unite…
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#155 - Mike de Vere | How Zest AI, a Fintech Breakthrough, is Making Fair Credit Accessible
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42:22As an executive at Zest AI, Mike has made it the company’s mission to leverage AI in consumer credit underwriting to build financial equity and create a better, richer, and fuller life for all. In his 25 years prior experience to Zest AI, Mike focused on amplifying the voice of consumers to governments and businesses through organizations like Niel…
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#154 - Victor Pascucci III | Pioneering Venture Capital at the Forefront of Natural Gas Innovation
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42:22Vic is a successful venture capitalist with 19+ years of broad professional experience. Top decile performing track record. Extensive ESG, digital transformation, fintech and Insurtech investing experience. Diverse background with Fortune 130 and early-stage venture companies. Complementary leadership roles in corporate strategy/ transformation and…
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#153 - Gale Wilkinson | Demystifying Investing, The Path to Inclusive Venture Capital
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42:50Gale Wilkinson is the Managing Partner at VITALIZE, early-stage fund & angel community investing in WorkTech startups. Gale is also revolutionizing angel investing through VITALIZE Angels, the largest inclusive angel group globally. She actively supports emerging talents in the VC sector via The VITALIZE Podcast and contributes to diversity in tech…
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#152 - Allison Whalen | Balancing Parenthood and Career, The Journey to Founding Parentaly
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39:37Throughout her entire adult life, Allison has been intensely focused on her career, always ensuring that her current role is not only a stimulating challenge but also a stepping stone towards future growth. In 2017, while pregnant with her first child, Allison nearly resigned from a sales leadership position she was passionate about. This inclinati…
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#151 - Samir Mirza | The Ups & Downs of Entrepreneurship
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57:10Samir Mirza is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Fifth Star Funds - a venture philanthropy fund investing in Black tech entrepreneurs at the pre-seed / "Friends & Family" stage in Chicago. He was formerly the Co-Founder and CTO of TapCommerce (acquired by Twitter for $100M). He began his career in Chicago consulting for Fortune 500 clients w…
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#150 - Dan Zavorotny | leveraging technology to improve global health
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30:29Dan is on a mission to personalize nutrition by leveraging CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) and Machine Learning. In simple terms, Nutrisense helps reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes & heart disease, helping people shed unwanted weight, and advise athletes on how to become the best versions of themselves. Website: https://www.nutrisense.io/…
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#149 - Chris Kelly | The Sandler Sales Training Methodology
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39:59Chris Kelly is Owner of the Sandler Training® Center located in Toronto. His firm works with Business Leaders, Sales Leaders, Sellers & Customer Care professionals who are serious about personal and professional success and willing to succeed through ongoing improvement and implementation of growth strategies, structure and skill. Over the last dec…
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#148 - Claude Cimeus | Being Authentic & Bringing People Together
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1:04:43Claude Cimeus is a close personal friend and peer within Chicago's entrepreneurial ecosystem. He's currently Director of Platform at P33 Chicago; a non-profit focused on driving inclusive growth for Chicago’s tech sector. Prior to that, Claude worked as a Product Manager at five startups and founded three of his own right out of high school. On the…
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#147 - Swapnil Shinde | exiting 2 startups & building AI for finance teams
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32:33Swapnil is the CEO & Co-founder of Zeni.ai - Bookkeeping, Tax, and CFO Services Platform designed for Startup Founders. Zeni is his 3rd startup. He has built and sold two startups before. His first startup was Dhingana and his second startup was Mezi.
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#146 - Mark Achler | How to Sell Your Startup, Maximize Return and Build Legacy
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53:19Venture Capital investor, CEO, Serial entrepreneur, a faculty member at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, and Co-author of Exit Right. Check out Mark's new book: https://amzn.to/3EGmqPS
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#145 - Kenny Rose | earning passive income through franchise investing
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25:30FranShares is an investment platform that lets anyone diversify their portfolio, hedge against inflation, and earn passive income through franchise investing. Our investors enjoy unparalleled transparency while investing in SEC and FTC regulated real assets that are rigorously-vetted and managed by our world-class team of franchise experts. Kenny R…
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#144 - Kristel Bechara | Becoming the First Female Artist From the Middle East to Launch NFT’s
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33:14Born in Lebanon and based in Dubai, Kristel Bechara is an award-winning contemporary artist who has quickly established herself as the rising star of the Middle Eastern art world. Recognized for her dynamic patterns and expressive colours, Kristel’s artwork consists of the revolutionary creation of photographic imagery using oil, acrylic and giclée…
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#143 - Priyanka Jain | Reinventing How We Understand & Treat the Female Body
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29:14Evvy is on a mission to radically reinvent how we understand and treat the female body, starting with the vaginal microbiome. Evvy’s first product — the Evvy Vaginal Health Test — is the first-ever at-home vaginal microbiome test to use metagenomic sequencing to tell you what’s up down there, why it matters, and what you can do about it. Site: http…
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#142 - Daniel Dubois | Co-ownership Platform Providing Access to Real Estate for All
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45:59Daniel is a serial entrepreneur and passionate changemaker. He recently sold his last two venture-backed companies and joined Airbnb full-time. Daniel also spoke on stage in front of 20,000 youth at We Day, directed a film series on the sharing economy, received a monthly grant from the Austrian government to conduct research on the European sharin…
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#141 - Amanda Lannert | Vulnerability in Leadership & Daring to Be Great
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30:02Amanda Lannert is CEO of Jellyvision and has been a key figure in driving the company since its founding in 2001. Her focus at Jellyvision is on the company’s strategy, improving processes to better scale operations, partnership development, and customer acquisition to continue fueling the company’s growth. Under Amanda’s leadership, Jellyvision ha…
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#140 - Paul Hsu | Investing in Web3 With a $48.8M Blockchain Venture Fund
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40:57Paul Hsu is Founder and CEO of Decasonic, the venture and digital assets fund building blockchain innovation. As a tech investor and operator, Paul partners with outlier founders to accelerate product market fit and systematically scale early stage companies. Paul’s curiosity and conviction in disruptive technology date back to the dawn of the Inte…
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#139 - Guy Kawasaki | The Art of the Start & Lessons From Steve Jobs
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44:12Guy possesses extensive knowledge of innovation, entrepreneurship, social media, podcasting, and marketing. First and foremost, he is an evangelist. The term comes from a Greek word that means "bringing the good news." That's what he does--whether the good news of Macintosh or the good news of Canva, an online graphics-design firm. In addition to h…
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#138 - Victor Gutwein | Building One of the Most Active VC Firms in the Midwest at 29
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36:48Entrepreneur, economist and strategist aiming to create value in the Midwest by investing in early-stage startups. https://m25vc.com/
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#137 - Boyede Sobitan | building a digital marketplace for cultural groceries
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36:54Boyede Sobitan is the Co-Founder and CEO of OjaExpress. OjaExpress is a digital marketplace for cultural groceries. OjaExpress seeks to provide a culturally competent service that is reflective and respectful of people's individual cultures. Check it out: https://ojaexpress.com/
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#136 - Anoop Gupta | SeekOut crossing unicorn status & lessons from working with Bill Gates
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43:29Anoop Gupta is the CEO and Co-Founder of SeekOut, the AI-powered Talent 360 platform. Anoop started SeekOut after a 20-year career at Microsoft, which began with the acquisition of his first startup, VXtreme, in 1997. During his tenure, Anoop was the Corporate Vice-President of the multibillion-dollar Unified Communications group. He was TA to Bill…
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#135 - Austin Long | Building Community Through Internet Collectibles
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40:36Youtooz is a company turning nostalgia and internet culture into amazing products that people love, has grown its online following to 2 million in just two years. It has also seen YoY growth of 600% from 2019 to 2021. About Austin long: former founder of SquareOne, former SVP of Gaming at Omnia Media, acquired by BlueAntMedia in Jan 2016. Currently…
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#134 - Pete Wilkins | Finding Purpose as an Entrepreneur
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52:26Pete Wilkins is a purpose-driven leader committed to creating a positive impact in the world. Before he was thirty, he was a critical part of two technology startups that sold and IPO’d for more than $2.8 billion. He later went on to lead the turnaround of a medical education company from record losses to record profits and built one of the premier…
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#133 - Lauren Foundos | From Wall St. to Fitness Tech
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42:09FORTË is the fitness industry's only turnkey premium live and on-demand streaming white-label digital solution. For more information, please visit https://www.goforte.fit/ or email [email protected]
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#132 - Kyle Nakatsuji | Building a Smarter Choice for Car Insurance
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55:48Clearcover offers affordable car insurance that’s smarter, faster and puts your needs above all else, helping you make informed decisions every step of the way. Prior to starting Clearcover, Kyle helped launch a venture-capital fund at American Family Insurance. He convinced the insurer to invest in video-doorbell startup Ring, which was later acqu…
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#131 - Yuval Brisker | The Emergence of Embedded Finance
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53:45About Yuval Yuval is a serial technology entrepreneur. Prior to founding Alviere, Yuval co-founded TOA Technologies, the leading global provider of field service management SaaS solutions. He led TOA over 40 straight quarters of recurring revenue growth, raising $133m in capital from Draper, Intel Cap & TCV. Oracle acquired TOA in the summer of 201…
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#130 - Ash Agarwal | Digitally Transforming the Resource Industry
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47:18Symboticware is an Operating System of Intelligence that digitally transforms the resource industry in real-time with end-to-end actionable data insights. Website: http://www.symboticware.com Ash's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashutoshmagus/
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#129 - Marc Champagne | Questions That Stimulate Your Mental Fitness
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50:40Inspired by Socrates himself, Marc Champagne draws on his interviews with award-winning writers, designers, photographers, strategists, entrepreneurs, technologists, musicians, athletes, and more to provide inspiration and examples as to where and how pointed self-inquiry can help your health, happiness and performance. Readers are guided by powerf…
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#128 - Brendan Wallace| Building the Largest Venture Capital Firm Focused on Real Estate Tech
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52:45Founded in 2016 and based in Los Angeles, California, Fifth Wall, a Certified B Corporation, is the largest venture capital firm focused on technology-driven innovation for the global real estate industry. With approximately $2.5 billion in commitments and capital under management, Fifth Wall connects many of the world's largest owners and operator…
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#127 - Brian Barnes | Personal Finance, Fintech, & Reaching Unicorn Status
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53:22M1 is an intelligent personal finance platform. You can invest for free in a custom portfolio, borrow against your portfolio at one of the lowest rates on the market, and spend seamlessly all from one account. https://www.m1finance.com/
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#126 - Matt Van Horn | Cofounding Zimride (Now Lyft) & Creating an Intelligent Oven
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43:18Matt Van Horn is an American entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of June, maker of the June Intelligent Oven. Previously he co-founded Zimride, now called the ride-sharing service Lyft, was Vice President of Business at Path, and ran partnerships at Digg He also worked at Apple while attending college. -- Thanks for your support! Let's Grab Cof…
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#125 - Joe Foster | The Founder of Reebok 👟
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1:07:49The remarkable story of how Joe Foster developed Reebok into one of the world's most famous sports brands, having started from a small factory in Bolton.
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#124 - Kailin Noivo, Co-Founder of Noibu | From Finance to Entrepreneurship, Lessons From the Trenches
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43:51Noibu is a SaaS product that allows retailers to detect, prioritize and resolve revenue impacting errors on their ecommerce websites. Serving some of the largest retail brands in USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Portugal, Mexico and Italy.
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#123 - Matt Bailey, Founder GameOn | Building the Future of Superfan Engagement
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38:46GameOn lets your fans connect, make predictions, track live scores and be rewarded during every moment of their favorite sports, TV shows and live events. Get in touch to give your superfans a super engaging experience.
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#122 - John Abrams, CEO of Venzee Technologies | Optimizing supply chain with artificial intelligence
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48:32Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abramsjohn/
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#121 - Michael Schein, President of MicroFame Media | Lessons From the World’s Greatest Propagandists
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52:56He is the author of The Hype Handbook: 12 Indispensable Success Secrets From the World’s Greatest Propagandists, Self-Promoters, Cult Leaders, Mischief Makers, and Boundary Breakers (McGraw Hill, January 12, 2021). His articles have appeared in Fortune, Forbes, Inc., Huffington Post, and Psychology Today.. He speaks to international audiences spann…
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#120 - Deon Nicholas, CEO of Forethought | TechCrunch Disrupt winner, the "AI for Customer Support"
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43:45Deon is the CEO & Co-founder of TechCrunch Disrupt winner Forethought, the "AI for Customer Support" company.
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LGC E119 - Jon Cheney | Augmented Reality Meets Commerce
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51:25Jon is a visionary leader in the world of augmented reality. SeekView brings augmented reality directly to websites. Augmented reality will be a mainstream component of e-commerce in the next 3 years, and Seek has the world’s most advanced and powerful system to provide a scalable solution for AR in e-commerce on the web.…
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LGC E118 - Rachel Tipograph | Creativity, eCommerce, & Influence
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35:36Rachel Tipograph considered herself amongst the digerati since the moment she became an eBay power user at 13. Forbes listed Rachel as one of its “30 under 30 Who Are Changing The World”, Marie Claire named her one of "The 50 Most Influential Women in America," Fast Company named her one of "The Most Creative People in Business", AdAge named her on…
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LGC E117 - Jeff Korzenik | how second chance hiring works for your business and the community
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42:28Jeff Korzenik is the Chief Investment Strategist at Fifth Third Bank, one of the country's largest regional banks, and is responsible for the allocation of over $30 billion in client investment. He is also the author of the recently published book "Untapped Talent: How Second Chance Hiring Works for Your Business and the Community."…
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LGC E116 - Tessa Wijaya | building the fastest growing digital payments infrastructure in Southeast Asia
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32:40Tessa Wijaya is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Xendit, the fastest growing digital payments infrastructure in Southeast Asia. She is responsible for the overall business operations of the company, including service and support, partnerships, government, and public relations, as well as compliance. Tessa co-founded Xendit with a highl…
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LGC E115 - Rohan Kapoor | being a houseguest on Big Brother Canada 9 #roshow
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42:18Rohan is a good friend of mine, who used to be my colleague at TMX Group. He since left TMX to delve into the startup world and has since joined Gorgias, an integrated helpdesk for e-commerce brands, as a Strategic Partner Manager. He also recently starred on Big Brother Canada 9. We talk about his entire experience in the house and what it was lik…
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