Entrepreneurial Thinkers with Rob Ryan

In this episode, Rob is joined by the talented and thoughtful Miki Reynolds, CEO/Co-Founder of Grid110, a Los Angeles based early stage startup accelerator and community development non-profit organization. Miki shares her decade + experiences in building the entrepreneurial economy of LA, intentionally serving under-served founder communities and the rules of the game of venture capital. She tells an incredible story of the evolution and pivots within the Grid110 program, from the initial idea in DTLA to a dynamic nationally scaling program today. Miki tells her own growth story professionally evolving from thinking of herself as a classic organizational Number 2, or a “VP of Getting-Shit-Done” to the dynamic CEO, respected leader and more than capable Number One that she is now.

Since 2014, Miki has focused on activating the startup ecosystem in Los Angeles by fostering community, and connecting the dots for entrepreneurs through access to mentoring and critical resources. Prior to founding Grid110, Miki launched the Downtown LA location for tech education company General Assembly.

Miki is a critical part of the LA startup ecosystem and has accepted commendations from Mayor Eric Garcetti on behalf of General Assembly and Grid110. She has been recognized by LA Biz Journal as a Woman of Influence, was named to Techweek’s #Techweek100, and sits on advisory councils for two of the Mayor's diversity inclusion initiatives: PledgeLA and WiSTEM LA.

Feel free to follow and engage with Miki Reynolds here:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikireynolds/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikster/?hl=es

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikster?s=20&t=lD7Wrq7hPyl54ai2cbMwLg

Program website: https://www.grid110.org

Personal website:   http://www.mikireynolds.com

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA!

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future!

¡Salud y gracias!,

Mentors Today's Team

In this episode, Rob is joined by his friend, Isaac McCoy, who shares his unique perspective on the critical work of inclusiveness and creating economic access to entrepreneurial activity in under-served communities of color, from his hometown of Chicago, to the Southern United States and the world. Isaac is a natural leader, and has leveraged that skill to build a number of consulting companies, a Private Equity investment firm and serve a stint in President Obama’s administration.

Isaac is the co-founder of the Jamii Group, a social impact and business development firm working with up and coming businesses as well as Fortune 500 brands. Dedicated to educating the next generation of business leaders and influencers, Isaac currently serves as the Dean of the School of Business at historic Stillman College, an HBCU (Historically Black College & University) in Alabama. His vision and strategy focuses on Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Technology, Accreditation, Fundraising, Globalization, Civic Engagement and Responsibility.

A former White House Appointee in the Obama Administration, he led economic policies and initiatives to support the growth and sustainability of minority-owned businesses.

Isaac served as a Global Innovation Fellow, within the US State Department, a select group of emerging entrepreneurs and innovators who are committed to international dialogue that promotes shared economic prosperity and inclusive innovation in and between American and Chinese markets.

Feel free to follow and engage with Isaac McCoy here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacmccoy/

Website: https://thejamiigroup.com/

Email: [email protected]

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA!

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future!

¡Salud y gracias!,

Mentors Today's Team

In this episode, Rob and Ileana are joined by super connector/visionary, Dave Whelan, CEO of BioscienceLA, an innovative catalyst for Life Science and Health Innovation in Los Angeles. If you are an entrepreneur or investor in Life/Bio/Health Sciences, you'll want to hear what Dave has to say. He talks about Los Angeles's unique opportunity to grow its Life/Health sciences entrepreneurial economy. He proudly articulates his belief that LA is positioned to leverage its diversity, economic size, creativity, innovative universities, private capital and leading global companies to become a global leader in the future of the bio/life/health sciences-tech economy over the next 50-100 years. He is a hobby photographer, retired university DJ and overall, maybe the most kind person in LA!

As a consultant, advisor, entrepreneur, and operating executive, Dave has devoted his career to building successful businesses, from strategic, operational, financial, and human capital standpoints. He served as Chief Strategy Officer of the New York Genome Center and collaborated on development of the business plan, fundraising of $115 million, and operational launch. He launched one of the first fitness tracking wearable device companies, alongside 24 Hour Fitness. He is a Mentor at the Cedars Sinai Accelerator, Founding Member of the UCLA CEO Forum, Principal Advisor to the LARTA Institute, co-founder of the Stanford Ideas and Connections Network and a loving husband, dad and master relationship builder. He holds an MBA with Honors from the UCLA Anderson School of Business and an undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University.

Feel free to follow and engage with Dave here:

Twitter: @djwhelan

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/djwhelan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/djwhelan

Instagram: @djwhelan

Website: https://www.biosciencela.org

TikTok: @djwhelan 

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA!

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future!

¡Salud y gracias!,

Mentors Today's Team

In this episode, Ileana and Rob are joined by Tadashi Takaoka, Gerente General, Socialab Chile. He challenges us to begin a conversation about this pivotal moment for entrepreneurship in Latin America and the world at large. He brings a unique sense of history, borne of his experiences as one of the original leaders of entrepreneurial innovation in Chile and Latin America through his long career in the private sector and government. In this episode Tadashi dives deeply into the questions around "what is social innovation?" "Can entrepreneurship involve real social impact?" and "is our current model of entrepreneurial economic development working or not?" 

Tadashi Takaoka is an Industrial Civil Engineer by education and has a Master's in Operations Management from the University of Chile. His areas of specialization are innovation and entrepreneurship, being one of the few existing executives in Chile that has studied and executed this subject from five different fronts: Consultant, General Manager, Entrepreneur, University Professor and Manager of a business accelerator. His professional strengths lie in business strategy, rapid testing of innovative business models and total autonomy to obtain high-impact results with low resource use. He was in charge of innovation entrepreneurship in Chile as Entrepreneurship Manager of Corfo and today he works as General Manager at Socialab Chile.

Feel free to follow and engage with TADASHI here:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tadashitakaoka?lang=es

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tadashitakaoka/?originalSubdomain=cl 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tadashi.takaoka/?hl=es

Website: https://socialab.com

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA!

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future!

¡Salud y gracias!,

In this episode, recorded in the Fall of 2021, Rob and Ileana are joined by one of the OG Latino American and Mexican Venture Investors, Federico Antoni, founding partner at ALLVP. He has been a leading catalyst and passionate advocate for the entrepreneurial economies of the region for the last 10+ years and joined our show to share his unique perspectives gained over those years when there were very few peers alongside him. If there were a theme of this episode with Fede though, it was not about Fede at all, it was all about "the people, the people, the people." He joins Ileana and Rob to discuss some of the best and brightest young founders in the region. He shares his unique perspective on how the region has arrived at this moment, and what will be required to thrive, as both founders and investors, in the coming years.

In 2012, Federico founded (ALLVP), the first institutional early-stage venture capital fund in the Mexico.  Federico has successfully raised two Funds focused on Seed, Series A, and Series B investments.  His team has overseen 25 investments to-date, with some of the most reputable and leading companies in the region, across four sectors: FinTech, Digital Consumer, Healthcare, and Smart Cities. Federico, who is a husband and proud father, is a frequent TechCrunch contributor, is also an Entrepreneurship and Management Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received his MBA in 2004. He also holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Applied Economics from Paris Dauphine.

Feel free to follow and engage with Federico here:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/federicoantoni

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mantoni

Website: https://www.allvp.com

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA!

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future!

¡Salud y gracias!,

Mentors Today's Team

In this episode, Rob and Ileana are joined by Daniel Verdugo Bosnic, an accomplished ultra-marathoner, competitive athlete, software engineer, world traveler and dedicated father and husband. Daniel challenges our audience to lean into their curiosity and fail often while taking big swings in life because the joy is in the journey! He joined our hosts from his new home in Miami Florida, United States, where he has ambitiously relocated his family in order to pursue his curiosity for expanding his Chilean company.  After an early career within IBM Chile, and 16+ years of tremendous success creating and growing his multi-million dollar per year revenue company in Chile, Daniel, now in his late 40's, decided to bet on his vision to break beyond the comfort of his life in Chile to build something bigger.

Daniel is the Founder and CEO of Aligare, which now compromises two companies, Aligare Chile and Aligare International. Both companies are technology development companies, that provide software development services and products to the leading company brands in the Chilean market, and are now aggressively expanding to service similar clients across the USA and Latin America in the telecommunications, media, retail, financial services and adjacent industries, via their offices in Miami.

Daniel is a graduate of the University de Chile, with a degree in Civil Engineering, and he also holds a Masters in Business Management from Adolfo Ibáñez University, in Santiago Chile and is currently enrolled in courses at MIT for the development of innovative processes, toward his Advanced Certificate for Executives in Management, Innovation and Technology.

Feel free to follow and engage with Daniel here:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniel-verdugo-bosnic-9643187

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ibosnic

Website: https://www.aligare.cl

Email: [email protected]

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA!

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future!

¡Salud y gracias!,

Mentors Today's Team

In this episode, Rob and Ileana are joined by Mariano Gonzalez Vasconcelos from San Antonio, Texas. Mariano, is a devout gamer, who shares his inspiring life journey from a small town in Mexico, to the United States, Northwestern University, a top tier career in Strategy Consulting and the launching of his life long dream to become a Venture Capitalist investing in others. He discusses his unique experiences in both cultures, his realizations about our increasingly "online/remote" world while also highlighting a few of the stories of incredible founders and their companies which he has backed recently.

Mariano is the Founder and General Partner of MGV Capital Group, a venture capital firm enabling massive growth for early-stage digital ventures across the U.S. and Mexico.

As a Founder, he has launched several startups in professional services, retail, technology, and gaming. His global perspective includes engagements in the U.S., U.K., Mexico, Germany, Peru, Colombia, and South Korea.

Feel free to follow and engage with Mariano here:

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA!

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future!

¡Salud y gracias!,

Mentors Today's Team.

In this episode, Rob and Ileana welcome Miguel (Mike) Medina, Co-founder of Plerk, a (YC) Y Combinator funded company from Mexico. Mike shares his incredible personal story, a conventional path turned unconventional path when forced to make hard life choices, at an early age. His journey takes us through a lifetime of sales/selling, from his earliest childhood, hustling to sell candies at school, to a university aged sales intern with big global companies such as Apple, Danone and eventually Rappi, one of Latin America's earliest fast growth companies. Mike shares his humble advice and perspectives learned during his young, but full entrepreneurial life.  

Mike is one of Mexico’s up and coming new entrepreneurs at just 30 years old. A 4th-year drop-out while studying for his Bachelor in Industrial Engineering at Tec de Monterrey. With more than 15 years of experience in sales, growth, expansion, marketing and more. He has been part of some of the biggest brand companies in the world, as a Campus Representative and Commercial Assistant at Apple and Danone. Also, an early employee of the LatAm leader, Rappi where he was regional General Manager, launching many new country and city markets throughout Latin America.

Feel free to follow and engage with Mike here:

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA!

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future!

¡Salud y gracias!,

Mentors Today's Team

In this episode, Rob (flying solo without our absent but amazing co-host Ileana) welcomes the founder of Lalo, Juan Medina, from Seattle, WA. Juan is the definition of nomad, having been born in Brazil, to Colombian and Bolivian parents who then grew up in Kentucky, USA and attended university and built his early career all across the United States. He and his family are now happily settled in Seattle Washington. He shares the unique story, of standing at his Father's grave,  and being inspired to build Lalo, his company, which deals with two of life's universal truth; Death and our Memories. He also talks about the struggle to "fit" the patterns of modern day VC as an under-represented founder of color. 

Juan is an experienced executive leader and first time entrepreneur, with a passion for developing people and building new ventures. His 20+ years experience came across Healthcare, Retail, Private Brand and Cloud computing with a few major global brand companies. He served as Director Marketing, Ambulatory Care at Cardinal Health, Sr. Manager Vendor Management at Amazon, Sr Manager Strategic Initiatives at AWS and Senior Manager across multiple product areas, again at Amazon. 

Feel free to follow and engage with Juan here:

Twitter: @AtJuanMedina

LinkedIn: @juanemedina

Correo: [email protected]

Lalo App: https://www.lalo.app

We're so grateful to you, our growing audience of entrepreneurs, investors, builders, influencers and those interested in the entrepreneurial economies of Latin America and the under-represented entrepreneurial communities in the USA!

Plug in, relax and enjoy some Spanish, English and a fun dose of spanglish as always. We're here to help inspire, educate and empower you, so that you can build the future!

¡Salud y gracias!,

Mentors Today's Team