ChairWaves

For years, Mike Thorne led by the numbers. It took a career setback for him to learn that people matter just as much as profit. Today, the Portland, Maine area Vistage Chair helps business owners focus on the other P&L that matters, people and listening. 

On this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, Mike shares what he learned leading companies like Russell Athletic Team Sports and Yankee Candle, and how he often ended up in roles where he wasn’t the industry expert. Now, as a Chair, he starts most conversations with prospective members by asking to hear their story, because he’s found that the experiences people carry influence how they lead. Mike offers valuable lessons about leadership from someone who learned them the hard way. 

You can connect with Mike on LinkedIn.

Most business owners got where they are by being the hero of their own business. Seattle, WA Vistage Chair Anton Brummer says the harder step is learning to let go of that role. That’s why this year’s theme for his groups is moving from hero to architect, where members let their teams step up while they focus on designing the business instead.

Anton, who built his early career in tech sales, learned this himself when he bought a single franchise takeout restaurant as a passive investment and grew it to 17 locations without ever claiming to be a restaurant expert. On this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, Anton shares how a near-death experience in 2015 eventually led him to help other entrepreneurs as a Vistage Chair. 

The best way to reach Anton is to email him at [email protected] or reach out on LinkedIn.

For the 100th episode of the Chairwaves podcast, I finally got my own Vistage Chair on the other side of the mic. Denver area Chair Rex Wiederspahn has been guiding me for eight years, and it’s an honor to have him on the show. As someone who has learned a lot from Rex, I wanted to know what he wishes leaders like me would stop doing. His answer got at something a lot of us struggle with: the skills that got us where we are can start to hold us back. 

Rex learned about business from entrepreneurial grandparents and started his own company at 21, running it for more than three decades. After stints in sales leadership and turnarounds, he found himself coaching business owners on the side and realized it was the most fun he’d had. Now ten years and seven groups into his work as a Chair, Rex has won so many Vistage awards that I’ve lost count, though he’s more interested in helping leaders than collecting trophies. 

The best way to reach Rex is by email at [email protected] or on LinkedIn. 

Becky Powell-Schwartz, a Vistage Chair in the Dallas area, uses a simple filter for new members. She has to like them, there has to be mutual respect, and they have to want to grow and contribute to the group. Some of her members have now been with her for ten years, so the approach is clearly working.

On this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, Becky shares how she went from being a self-described awful social worker to building a successful PR firm, and eventually finding her most rewarding career as a Vistage Chair. She loves working with leaders and says the best part is getting to be part of each leader's journey, in business and in life.

You can connect with Becky on LinkedIn or through her website.

Lunch between meetings and drinks afterward are part of what bonds a peer group. So what happens when the whole group meets on Zoom? For Los Angeles, CA Vistage Chair Jed Daly, it comes down to psychological safety. Build that well, and a virtual group can be as close as one that meets in person.

A lifelong musician who has played in roughly 20 rock bands, Jed built his career in the media business before spending decades as a consultant. On this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, we get to know a true rock 'n' roll Chair. Jed shares the experiences that shaped his career, including a desire that eventually led him to Vistage: to have a positive impact on society and leave the world a little better than he found it.

The best way to contact Jed is by email at [email protected], or on his website. You can also contact him by phone at 310-717-5408.

Starting a Vistage group is hard enough, but try doing it in a city where you don't know a single person. That was the challenge facing Cathy “Fitz” Fitzhenry, now a Vistage Chair Emeritus, when she returned from Costa Rica and settled in Omaha, Nebraska. Eager to join Vistage as a member but finding no local groups, she decided to start one herself and ended up forming five, opening a market that has since grown well beyond them. Cathy credits her success to having the right energy. After mentoring dozens of Chairs and speakers, she believes leading from love, not fear, attracts like-minded people.

On this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, Cathy, who began her entrepreneurial career as a professional clown for the city of Chicago, shares why she set out to build her groups around heart-based leadership, a philosophy her members later encouraged her to turn into the first of multiple books. She also reveals why, after retiring as a Chair, she's coming full circle to become a Vistage member again. 

To connect with Cathy, join her free community, or visit her website.

What do crossing the border to Tijuana and a semiconductor company in Edinburgh have in common? For Silicon Valley area Vistage Chair Steve Lanza, both were formative stops on a career that eventually led him to becoming a Chair. In this episode of Chairwaves, Steve reflects on how years spent living and working internationally reinforced a simple truth that still drives him: people everywhere work hard to provide for their families, and building better businesses helps create better lives for those who depend on them.

Steve came to Vistage after a long executive career, including roles as CFO and COO. After he retired, he thought teaching would be his next step, but it turned out that he missed solving problems and seeing how things turned out. So he ended up building a Vistage group, a process that took longer than expected. Steve talks candidly about what makes someone a good fit for Vistage and shares the advice he'd give new Chairs trying to build their groups from scratch.

Connect with Steve on LinkedIn or via email at [email protected]. 

A.J. Mirabedini has been a CEO eleven times. After a long career building companies as well as turning them around for others, he unexpectedly found his way into leading Vistage groups in New Mexico. Now, instead of managing transactions, he's part of something that feels less like business and more like family. 

For AJ, chairing is a way to give back and invest in an amazing business ecosystem in one of the poorest states in the country. He leads his groups with compassion, helping leaders build organizations that support their employees, their families, and their communities. In this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, AJ talks about coming to New Mexico looking forward to retirement, fly fishing and camping, only to find himself building Vistage groups instead. What started as a retirement plan has turned into another career helping New Mexico's business leaders grow. 

To connect with AJ, reach out by email at [email protected]. 

Charlotte Wagner spent 30 years in the corporate world as an engineer and a leader before she ever thought about leading a Vistage group. She's now a year in as a Vistage Chair and she's learned that careful planning isn't the only thing that makes a meeting great, it's the trust the members build in each other and the range of perspectives they bring to the table. 

On this episode of Chairwaves, Charlotte talks about how being an introvert has shaped her group, drawing in members who prefer a structured, thoughtful approach, and how three decades of overdelivering for other companies eventually led her to build something of her own. Charlotte’s story is proof that you don't need a specific personality or background type to be a great Chair and impact members’ lives.

Connect with Charlotte on LinkedIn or through her website.

Stephanie Geisler didn't know what Vistage was until weeks before starting Chair Academy. No prior peer group experience, no long research phase, just a moment of clarity she trusted enough to act on. On this episode of Chairwaves, the Salt Lake City Chair talks about why she leans on intuition even though she has no shortage of data to guide her.

Stephanie has continued to trust that instinct throughout her time as a Chair. She now runs five Vistage groups, each one launched in response to what her members needed at the time. Before becoming a Chair, Stephanie co-founded a company that reached twenty-five million in revenue by year three before going on to lead the University of Utah's full-time MBA program, where she grew the share of women in the cohort from eighteen to forty percent alongside a jump in national rankings. For Stephanie, chairing isn't just a profession. It's a calling.

The best way to reach Stephanie is through email at  [email protected] or by text 801-721-4476.