Critical Mass Business Talk Show | Orange County’s Longest-Running Business Talk Show

Polina Kratova is the Founder and CEO of RiseUP Stars, a pioneering organization in youth enrichment and education. With over a decade of experience working with tech-enabled startups and building impactful programs, Polina has dedicated her career to empowering young minds through innovative, hands-on learning experiences.

RiseUP Stars is a leading provider of enrichment programs that span before, during, and after-school settings, as well as structured recess and out-of-school camps. Under Polina’s leadership, the organization has expanded to reach thousands of students in California, offering unique opportunities in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math), wellness, and mindfulness education.

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

Tom Wood is a seasoned entrepreneur and industry expert with a passion for helping business maximize profits and increase their bottom line. As the CEO of Silent Streams, he has successfully saved companies millions of dollars and increased employees' benefits at the same time. With a keen eye for innovation and a commitment to excellence, Tom is dedicated to changing the way business owners approach cost containment and risk mitigation.

Silent Streams is an industry leader and completely revolutionizes the way businesses operate by providing innovative solutions in cost containment and value-added services. Our cutting-edge technology and expert team help businesses dramatically increase bottom line profits and create healthier and more profitable work environments for their employees. Whether you're a small business owner or a large corporation, we can help you achieve your goals and drive growth without risk or financial investment.

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

Known as The Transformational Book Coach for “cause publishing,” Susie Schaefer believes that books are the gateway to creating a movement. Whether writing a book helps an author heal past trauma or raise awareness for social change, Susie empowers storytellers to be part of the global conversation and create a ripple effect for humanity, particularly when an author shares their own story in connection to their mission, message, and community.

Susie's bestselling books include A Path to Purpose: Seven Inspired Stories to Discover Your True North, The Pivot Project: Stories to Inspire the Shift in Your Life, Your First Book: The Publishing Guide for New Authors, and The Escape: How to Leave Your Abusive Relationship Safely (International Impact Book Award).

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

Shannon Chapman graduated from Mission Viejo High School in 2000, making her way to SDSU days before her 18th birthday. She wanted to be a teacher, so she majored in English & had her BA by 2004. She was 21 when she graduated college & set out to become a teacher abroad. Instead, she welcomed a baby boy at age 23 with half of her credential completed & a job as a substitute teacher. This was not exactly how she had imagined her pathway into teaching, but she knew she would somehow, someway, accomplish her goals.

Fast forward a few years & she was living in Orange County again, working as an executive assistant for Pepsico. She was learning the beverage industry, but she was also learning how to run a business. A year or so later, she moved on to Pepsi Bottling Group, learning sales, marketing & anything she could about small-format business. She became the number one sales rep in CA, breaking records and exceeding quotas.

From there she took over a dive bar for a friend who wanted out of the bar business. She took everything she knew and translated that into an extended “beverage” career as a bar owner, quadrupling sales within two months. She started baking cookies to sell in the bar & turned her side hobby into a multimillion-dollar manufacturing & distribution company for 15 years.

Then, she was ready to transition. She moved back to Mission Viejo to be closer to her parents when her father was diagnosed with Leukemia & Lymphoma. Now a single mother with three boys & a new house, Shannon had a desire to try something new. The goal was to start a business where she could still coach little league, make good money & prioritize her boys. Construction was a perfect fit & fell in her lap when she began construction in her backyard. She’s always loved construction & comes from a big family of men & women who are very handy & construction-oriented.

Shannon was working from home, so she became a student of the construction process from beginning to end. She made friends with the General Contractor, took over the construction of her house, then asked him for a job as a project manager of his construction company. She proved she could do the job by bidding a handful of jobs, landing those jobs, then completing the work as a project manager—all while starting a new company in the self-storage world.

Self-storage allowed her to do the construction she enjoyed, work the hours she wanted (mostly from home) & build generational wealth for her boys. She learned everything she could, built her team & took on a $17M ground-up development in AZ as her first project. Shannon is now a developer, doing her own projects as well as a vendor of services for other development companies.

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

Jenn Quader is President & CEO of The Smart Agency, a 30-year-old company she acquired in 2018 that is now the leading professional communications firm for commercial real estate and financial services companies in the United States. Her personal mission is to empower the next generation of confident communicators by sharing her voice in the global movement toward empathetic and human-first business leadership.

Jenn honed her skills working on behalf of major companies such as Fox/MGM Entertainment, Ford Motor Company, Michelin, and Mazda before specializing in commercial real estate. Today, in addition to leading her company, she is a poet, author, and now a recording artist with her debut vocal jazz album called “Love, In All Its Forms.”

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

John Cervenka is the CEO and a co-founder of Starfish Social Media Inc. Starfish is a fast growing global social media platform that enables users to promote their good, connect with others that share common interests, and easily connect with the causes they about. Prior to launching Starfish, John was an Institutional Advisor with Morgan Stanley. Before joining Morgan Stanley, John was a producer and writer with FOX Studios, Sony Television, Spike TV and Game Show Network. John attended the University of Southern California and the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He and his wife, Kerry, live in Southern California and have 4 children.

Steven Mott, COO and co-founder of Starfish Social Media Inc., is an experienced business professional with a focus on Real Estate Construction and Management. He has worked with Williams-Sonoma and Dole Foods, among other top-tier companies. Founding Starfish Social Media is the result of Steven’s desire to create a legacy and make a difference with his time and treasures. Steven believes in the power of giving back through supporting the American Himalayan Foundation, his alma mater UC Berkeley and other nonprofits with needs both big and small.

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

Ian Tonks is an expert EOS Implementer at EOS Worldwide. Through the Entrepreneurial Operating System™, Ian Tonks combines timeless business principles with a set of simple, practical, real-world tools to help entrepreneurs get what they want from their businesses, enabling them to crystalize their vision, instill discipline and accountability throughout the organization, and build healthy, functional and collaborative work teams.

His journey to EOS began in the late 1990s, when he spent seven years running a 650-employee company that provided youth sports programming to a variety of professional sports organizations, including Major League Soccer, the NFL and Jack Nickalus’ Golden Bear International.

After getting married in 2006, he traded the grind of 100,000+ flight miles a year for the short commute to a private Bay Area University, where he led several capital fundraising campaigns and saw the institution through its transition to NCAA division 2.

In 2009, he launched a business development practice to pursue his true passion and purpose: helping business leaders plan more strategically, grow more reliably, and maximize the talent in their companies. His EOS light bulb moment occurred in early 2015, when a friend and mentor recommended he read the book “Traction,” by Gino Wickman. He instantly connected with the simplicity and practicality of its transformative message and seized the opportunity to create his own EOS practice.

Today, he’s an expert EOS Implementer with 750-plus sessions of real-world experience across an array of industries. Fusing three decades of executive and entrepreneurial experience, he customizes EOS’s proven system to each client’s unique situation and needs.

To connect with Ian, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-tonks-a7977275/ 

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

Sebastian Zelger, born in 1988 in Germany, is the CEO of Liqui Moly USA. His early experiences with low-paying and physically exhausting vacation jobs during high school fueled his determination to pursue higher education and a successful career. While studying, Zelger gained hands-on experience at prominent companies like Porsche AG in Stuttgart and Carl Zeiss in Aalen.

In 2014, Sebastian joined Liqui Moly as a junior export sales manager, where he underwent two years of intensive training. His hard work and dedication paid off when he was appointed CEO of Liqui Moly USA. At the start of his leadership, the company had just 10 employees and annual sales of $10 million. Over the span of eight years, Zelger successfully grew the business, expanding the team to over 70 professionals and increasing sales to more than $100 million annually.

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

Scott Cannon is the CEO of OC-based BigRentz, a leading procurement software company that solves long-standing challenges in construction by streamlining equipment procurement and improving logistics.

The platform connects contractors to over 14,000 rental yards and 6,000 rental companies across the U.S., reducing inefficiencies in a traditionally fragmented industry. With BigRentz’s expansive network, 90% of job sites nationwide are reachable within 30 minutes, helping contractors optimize operations, cut transportation costs, and enhance project efficiency.

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

Curtis McCullom is a Human Potential Coach, Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, speaker, and trainer with over 35 years of experience in self-improvement and personal development.

As the CEO of the Curtis McCullom Group LLC, Bespoke Human Potential Coaching, Curtis helps individuals and entrepreneurs break through mindset blocks, increase income, and find fulfillment through his L.G.E.T. Mindset™ (Learning, Growing, Expanding, and Transforming) framework.

Certified in hypnotherapy, Master Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Master Mental Emotional Release ® (MER), and Executive Coach, Curtis integrates these modalities into his coaching programs to help clients achieve profound transformations in life and business. Passionate about empowering others to become the best version of themselves, Curtis is dedicated to teaching the principles of personal growth, transformation, and alignment with core values.

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Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.