He went from the CIA, including a year in Afghanistan to dropping out of business school to building companies. Now he's on a mission to keep America the global leader in physical AI.

✅ Why America's factory capacity problem is about workflow, not workforce ✅ How trapped capacity (sub-50% utilization) hides in the industrial base ✅ Why "what got you here is the constraint" that stops you getting there

How do you bring autonomous vehicles to an industry that hasn't fundamentally changed in 200 years — and get century-old regulators on board?

In this episode of CEOs Unscripted, host Jane Gentry sits down with Matt Soule, founder of Parallel and a 13-year SpaceX veteran, to unpack what building rockets taught him about leading change everywhere else. From battery-electric autonomous rail to the messy human side of transformation, Matt shares the leadership principles behind moving a legacy industry forward.

This one is a masterclass in mission, ownership, and why the smartest performers build teams instead of protecting turf. Essential listening for any founder or mid-market CEO navigating growth, AI, and organizational change.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

💬 A FEW LINES THAT STUCK WITH US:

📌 TIMESTAMPS:

👤 ABOUT MATT SOULE:

🎙️ ABOUT CEOS UNSCRIPTED:

👉 Subscribe so you never miss a candid conversation with a trailblazing leader.

#SpaceX #Leadership #ChangeManagement #AI #CEO #MidMarket #Innovation #Autonomous #Startup #Entrepreneurship

Most business owners wait until they're tired to think about selling. By then, it's too late — and it costs them millions.

Most CEOs talk about innovation. Drew Allen lives it.

From taking his first trip to China at 13, to speaking Mandarin and Portuguese, to attending an AI hackathon hosted by the PayPal Mafia before most CEOs even knew what a large language model was, Drew Allen is not your average CEO.

As the leader of Grace Technologies, Drew has quietly built one of the most experimentally driven, AI forward, high performance cultures in the industrial electronics space. And in this episode of CEOs Unscripted, he pulls back the curtain on exactly how he did it and what every CEO can learn from his approach.

This is a conversation about curiosity, experimentation, reinvention and why the CEO who transforms themselves first is always the one who transforms their business.

In this episode, you'll learn:

✅ Why being present in the market is the single most underrated competitive advantage in sales

✅ The Jim Collins flywheel that has driven Grace Technologies from day one

✅ How to build a culture of small scale experimentation so you never have to risk the farm

✅ Why Drew runs 50 to 200 experiments at any given time and what he is looking for

✅ The AI hackathon that sped up Grace Technologies' AI journey by 12 months

✅ How Drew used Claude to build a sales forecasting ensemble model in an afternoon that would have taken a data scientist six months

✅ Why you cannot coach drive and what to look for when hiring instead

✅ How to find the real bottleneck in your business using the five whys exercise

✅ Why transforming your business always starts with transforming yourself first

💡 Key Insight: "One successful experiment pays for a lot of small failures. If you are having to risk the farm, you are probably not thinking about the problem in the right way."

🎙️ CEOs Unscripted is a bi-weekly podcast for mid-market CEOs, no fluff, no jargon, just real conversations from leaders who have been in the trenches.

📌 SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an episode.

#Leadership #CEOsUnscripted #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #MidMarket #HighPerformance #Manufacturing #AIForBusiness

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Cold open: The management insight most CEOs overlook

00:59 Welcome to CEOs Unscripted

02:33 Meet Drew Allen, CEO of Grace Technologies

03:44 Drew's backstory and family entrepreneurial legacy

06:35 What 3M in Asia taught him about business

08:34 The Toyota Way and being present in the market

11:24 Why Grace Technologies needed to reinvent itself

13:27 Building an engineering team from scratch

14:52 The Jim Collins flywheel and how Drew applied it

16:40 Balancing instinct with strategy

17:48 Fire bullets not cannonballs

19:21 Decision making under pressure

20:20 Building a culture of experimentation

22:42 How SpaceX thinks about time vs cost

23:09 What failing the right way looks like

25:19 High performance culture and what it really means

26:40 Removing toxic high performers

27:33 Why you cannot coach drive

30:02 Hiring for curiosity over credentials

31:37 How Drew became an AI forward CEO

33:29 The AI hackathon that changed everything

35:48 How Claude sparked a wildfire inside the company

36:26 Transform yourself before you transform your business

39:42 Deciding which AI experiments are worth scaling

42:02 Building a sales forecasting model in one afternoon

44:31 What the data changed about how he leads

46:14 Why Drew believes entrepreneurship beats philanthropy

48:57 Advising and investing in early stage founders

49:39 Advice Drew gives entrepreneurs at every stage

51:46 How to find the real bottleneck using five whys

54:48 Drew's closing thoughts

55:42 Jane's closing thoughts

Everyone talks about the strategy of being a CEO. Almost no one talks about the inner toll it takes.

Charbel Zreik went from collecting cans on the street as a refugee from civil war to running companies, then spent years as a full time yoga and meditation teacher after his first CEO seat nearly broke him. Today he teaches at Wharton and works with CEOs on something most leadership conversations completely ignore, the inner journey behind the title.

In this raw, deeply personal episode of CEOs Unscripted, Charbel sits down with Jane Gentry to unpack the five internal shifts every CEO needs to make to thrive under pressure, without sacrificing who they are to get there.

In this episode, you'll learn:

✅ The five shifts every CEO must make to thrive instead of just survive

✅ Why risk is not just intellectual, it lives in your body, and how to manage it

✅ The nervous system tools Charbel uses including cold plunging, breath work and meditation

✅ How to recognize when your ego has been triggered before it takes control

✅ The difference between being nice and being kind as a leader

✅ Why dropping your attachment to outcomes makes you more effective, not less

✅ How to lead with low ego and a clear mission without losing yourself

✅ Why nearly 90 percent of founders are unhappy a year after exiting, and how to avoid becoming one of them

💡 Key Insight: "There is anxiety, but I am not anxiety. There is fear, but I have a choice in how I respond to it."

🎙️ CEOs Unscripted is a bi-weekly podcast for mid-market CEOs, no fluff, no jargon, just real conversations from leaders who have been in the trenches.

📌 SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an episode.

#Leadership #CEOsUnscripted #MentalHealth #ExecutiveCoaching #Mindfulness #SelfAwareness #CEOMindset #PersonalGrowth #MidMarket #InnerWork

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Cold open: The hidden weight every CEO carries on their shoulders

01:05 Welcome to CEOs Unscripted

02:40 Meet Charbel Zreik, CEO and founder of DHA Laboratory

02:58 The story behind his name and his namesake saint

03:53 From civil war refugee to food stamps to Cornell, Charbel's backstory

05:33 The people who believed in him before he believed in himself

07:14 Becoming an observer of CEOs and the inner journey nobody talks about

08:44 The breaking point that started it all, his first CEO seat in 2014

10:33 The five shifts to inner mastery as a CEO

12:34 Why all five shifts happen concurrently, not in order

12:51 Shift one, leading from a safe body

14:55 Becoming a master of your own nervous system

15:32 The practices Charbel uses daily, meditation, breath work, cold plunging

17:04 The special forces technique of naming what you feel

18:49 Why young leaders catastrophize and how to break it down step by step

20:20 What to do when you feel completely frozen

21:13 Shift two, leading with an open courageous heart

22:29 Why high performers become critical of others without realising it

23:57 How your nervous system silently affects everyone in the room

25:37 Shame, change and why being the change agent makes you a target

26:59 The difference between being nice and being kind as a leader

27:26 Shift three, a present and centered mind

28:30 Why the mind never stops solving problems, even at 4am

28:55 Dropping attachment to outcomes and committing to the process instead

30:43 How heavy planning actually creates more presence, not less

31:45 Jane's calendar confession and the cost of moving too fast

33:29 Jane's nighttime notebook trick for quieting a racing mind

34:24 Shiny object syndrome and constant mental movement

36:35 Charbel's nightly checkout ritual to tell his mind it is done for the day

37:57 Why you have to experiment to find what actually works for you

38:35 Shift four, leading with low ego and mission orientation

39:23 The 90 percent statistic on founders who regret how they exited

39:58 Knowing your personal ego triggers and catching them in real time

41:32 Jane's story of one-upping a network president and catching herself

42:28 Why naming the trigger disempowers it instantly

43:10 Why fewer people tell the truth the higher you climb

44:39 The CEO who insisted ego never gets in the way, and what happened next

45:55 Succeeding without sacrificing who you are

46:01 Shift five, leading a highly disciplined lifestyle

47:32 Why none of these shifts happen without daily and weekly rituals

48:30 Charbel's simple parting advice, ten minutes of quiet to start every day

49:13 Jane's closing thoughts

Most founders spend twenty years building their business and about twenty minutes preparing to sell it.

The result? Millions left on the table. Bad deals. Regret. And in too many cases, starting all over again when they should be retired.

Jonathan Sherrill has been on every side of a business exit. He helped his father sell. He ran a company for private equity. He built his own company from scratch and sold it for twice what he expected. And then he wrote a book about all of it called The Extraordinary Exit.

In this episode of CEOs Unscripted, Jonathan sits down with Jane Gentry to share the unfiltered truth about what it really takes to get an extraordinary exit, and why most founders are completely unprepared for what comes after.

In this episode, you'll learn:

✅ The critical difference between building a company for income and building one for wealth

✅ The full advisory team you need before going to market and why most founders skip half of them

✅ Why the emotional preparation for selling is just as important as the financial preparation

✅ What happens when an unsolicited buyer approaches you and why it almost never ends well

✅ The seven levels of why exercise that reveals the real reason founders want to sell

✅ Why ego and pride destroy more deals than bad financials ever will

✅ What to do if your deal falls apart and why it is not the end of the story

✅ How to know if you are emotionally ready to sell before you ever go to market

💡 Key Insight: "If you think growing a business means you can sell one, you are in for a rude awakening. It is a whole different world."

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Cold open: I had no idea you could sell a company for a multiple until I lived through it

00:55 Welcome to CEOs Unscripted

02:35 Meet Jonathan Sherrill, author of The Extraordinary Exit and founder of Waypoint Founders

03:15 Jonathan's backstory: small town Florida, metal roofing, private equity and his own exit

04:38 What was different about the second exit vs the first

05:06 Learning the exit world from the inside out while working for private equity

06:33 Building a company from day one with the intention to sell it

08:16 Building for income vs building for wealth, the trap most founders fall into

09:22 Why being too important to your own business will kill your deal

09:55 The full advisory team you need before going to market

13:18 Who is the quarterback of the deal and why it matters

14:52 What Jonathan did differently the second time around

16:19 Why bad advisors cost founders millions and how to avoid them

18:50 Do not wait until you are exhausted to start preparing to sell

19:11 The stat that should scare every founder: most are unhappy within 18 months of selling

21:09 The exit why exercise and why your first answer is probably not the real reason

23:32 The emotional void that hits after a great exit and why founders are not prepared for it

25:07 How the book The Extraordinary Exit came to be

27:26 What Waypoint Founders actually does and who it is for

30:56 The seven levels of why exercise explained

33:49 Why learning from other founders is the whole point

35:09 Do not let a friend who sold one company be your only advisor

36:43 What makes deals fall apart and what you can do about it

38:24 If you are not coachable do not waste money on great advisors

39:56 How ego and pride destroy deals worth tens of millions of dollars

41:19 It takes ego to build a company, just do not let it be your downfall at exit

42:18 The exit readiness assessment on the Waypoint Founders website

44:10 How to connect with Jonathan Sherrill and get the book

44:44 The unsolicited buyer trap and why it almost never ends in your favour

46:26 What Jane has seen happen to founders who got bad advice

47:52 Jonathan's closing thoughts on what he genuinely cares about

48:09 Jane's closing thoughts

🎙️ CEOs Unscripted is a bi-weekly podcast for mid-market CEOs, no fluff, no jargon, just real conversations from leaders who have been in the trenches.

📌 SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an episode.

📖 Book Mentioned: The Extraordinary Exit by Jonathan Sherrill

#ExitStrategy #BusinessSale #CEOsUnscripted #FounderLife #MergersAndAcquisitions #PrivateEquity #BusinessGrowth #WealthBuilding #MidMarket #Entrepreneurship

Most incoming CEOs walk through the door ready to prove themselves. Ready to make big moves. Ready to show results fast.

And that urgency is exactly what gets them in trouble.

In this episode of CEOs Unscripted, Jane Gentry sits down with Neill Marshall, Chairman of Health Search Partners in Texas, who has spent years studying and recruiting top healthcare executives. Neill has quietly compiled one of the most valuable playbooks in leadership, a deep body of research on what separates CEOs who gain immediate traction from the ones who quietly lose the room before they ever had it.

This is not a theoretical conversation. It is drawn from real patterns, real executives and real consequences.

In this episode, you'll learn:

✅ The biggest misconception incoming CEOs have about their first 90 days

✅ Why symbolic actions in week one matter more than any strategy document

✅ How micromanagement in early days creates a culture of fear that outlasts your tenure

✅ What boards should actually be asking CEO candidates before making the hire

✅ Why focusing too much internally in the first 90 days can be just as dangerous as ignoring it

✅ The questions every new CEO should ask key stakeholders before making any assumptions

✅ Whether you can go back and course-correct if you already blew your first 90 days

💡 Key Insight: "90 days passes at the speed of light when you are new in that role. Letting that feeling cause you to move fast can cause you to make foolish choices."

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Cold open: Are CEOs as self-aware as they think they are?

01:04 Welcome to CEOs Unscripted

02:40 Meet Neill Marshall, Chairman of Health Search Partners

03:58 Neill's research on what makes CEOs succeed in their first 90 days

07:10 Why the first 90 days can launch you or break you

09:31 What CEOs think the first 90 days is about vs. what it actually is

10:16 What boards expect from a new CEO in the first three months

12:20 What are symbolic actions and why they matter more than you think

13:53 Do employees actually buy in or just go through the motions?

14:39 Authenticity is not a 30 day act, it has to be consistent

16:27 How new CEOs drive culture from day one without realising it

17:20 A story from Neill's research that sticks with him

19:50 What happens when decision rights are stripped from leadership teams

21:22 The hidden cost of micromanagement on your leadership team

22:49 Why self-awareness shrinks the higher you climb

23:38 Neill's research finding: not a single micromanager made it past 90 days successfully

25:00 Jane's story about her father's retirement party and what great leaders leave behind

27:12 Jane's experience being told to fire an executive and why she didn't

29:29 When boards are listening to the wrong people in the organisation

30:41 Why the pressure to move fast causes the most costly first 90 day mistakes

32:01 What does "doing good" actually look like and why boards rarely define it clearly

33:28 What boards should be asking CEO candidates about their first 90 day plan

35:19 Can a CEO focus too much internally in their first 90 days?

36:40 The financial CEO who could not speak any language other than numbers

39:12 Bringing the outside world in to your organisation and why it builds massive goodwill

41:56 How much pushback do CEOs actually give when coached on this?

42:55 The EVP who told Jane "their paycheck is their inspiration"

44:44 Decisions every incoming CEO should make before they even start

46:12 The questions new CEOs should be asking key stakeholders on day one

47:52 Treat your biggest account like a prospect, never assume the relationship is healthy

48:34 Does a strong first 90 days actually shape a great six year tenure?

49:29 What Neill wishes more people asked him about this topic

49:58 Can you go back and fix a bad start if you are already in the role?

50:29 Where to find Neill's articles and research on LinkedIn

51:14 Jane's closing thoughts

🎙️ CEOs Unscripted is a bi-weekly podcast for mid-market CEOs, no fluff, no jargon, just real conversations from leaders who have been in the trenches.

📌 SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an episode.

#Leadership #CEOsUnscripted #NewCEO #First90Days #ExecutiveLeadership #BusinessGrowth #MidMarket #CEOMindset #CompanyCulture #BoardGovernance

Rami Cassis has hired four CEOs. He replaced three of them. In this episode of CEOs Unscripted, the Monaco-based investor and founder of Parabellum Investments sits down with Jane Gentry to share the unfiltered truth about what separates great CEOs from expensive mistakes and why emotional intelligence matters more than any MBA or sector experience ever will.

If you hire CEOs, aspire to be one, or are already in the seat, this conversation will make you rethink everything.

In this episode, you'll learn:

💡 Key Insight: "The way you deliver something is just as important, if not more important, than what you actually say."

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Cold open: Why hiring a great CEO is as hard as hiring a great salesperson

📌 SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an episode.

🔗 Connect with Jane Gentry: [LinkedIn] 🔗 Connect with Rami Cassis: [LinkedIn]

#Leadership #CEOsUnscripted #EmotionalIntelligence #PrivateEquity #CEOMindset #BusinessGrowth #MidMarket #Turnaround #ExecutiveLeadership #ScalingUp

What if your entire company strategy fit on one slide? Jamie Church, CEO of Best Buy Medical, did exactly that and delivered growth in the process.

What if your entire company strategy fit on one slide? Jamie Church, CEO of Best Buy Medical, did exactly that and delivered 6X growth in the process.

If you're a mid-market CEO drowning in complexity, this episode will change how you think about strategy, people, and growth.

In this episode, you'll learn:

🎙️ CEOs Unscripted is a bi-weekly podcast for mid-market CEOs — no fluff, no jargon, just real conversations from leaders who've been in the trenches.

📌 SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an episode.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — Cold open: 6X growth with zero breakdowns here's how