After an impressive 16+ year run as Chief Marketing Officer of The Recording Academy running the GRAMMYs, Evan Greene is now Chief Business Officer overseeing strategy for next-level technology company Aria. Evan discusses the diverse verticals and relationships he is developing across industries, leveraging Aria's proprietary AR engine and revolutionary NFT exchange as Aria seeks to disrupt the areas of Talent, Media, and Brand Partnerships. He breaks above down in the podcast in layman's terms.

Evan then covers his 16+ year run as CMO of The Recording Academy running the GRAMMYs. He details the work he did putting together the music industry's biggest night and most prestigious awards, dealing with the world's largest names in the music industry. Evan discusses how the Grammys have evolved, how he persevered in the uber-competitive entertainment business, and how leaving CU Boulder he knew this was the route for him. Evan also discusses the GRAMMYs' "black eyes", like the sad and tragic Milli Vanilli scandal, which predated his tenure. But situations like that reared their heads and involved ongoing damage control for Evan well after the fact. Evan also tracks the evolution during his tenure at The Recording Academy of the changing business model of the music industry from physical albums > Napster, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Shazam, and more. Also how album's became less of a revenue generator compared to live concerts and festivals for artists, and how that did and didn't affect the GRAMMYs.

Evan also is the co-founder of 3 Emerald Marketing, a data-based strategic consultancy driving innovation in the passion-fueled areas of music, sports and entertainment. Greene also spent a decade at powerhouse studios Disney and Sony, overseeing global partnership strategy for some of Hollywood's biggest franchises.

Evan reveals his biggest strength as a marketer across all his jobs and verticals, which he credits his success. Take a listen to a "Hollywood Mogul" give a detailed playbook in the midst of a great career, and the steps he took along the way to his latest endeavor at Aria. https://thearianetwork.com/

Rick French, who is as much an entrepreneur as the word entrepreneur affords, joins my podcast to share his journey founding PR/Advertising/Digital firm French West Vaughan in 1997. FWV had its best year in 2020 during the pandemic and '21 is significantly outpacing '20. Rick shares the reasons why from circumstances, to active decisions in strategy, FWV thrived during the pandemic. Upon starting French West Vaughan and being HQ'd in Raleigh, Rick would not take on a local Raleigh client for the first two years. Rick wanted to build national and international credibility for his business. He did just that procuring clients around the country and internationally for his Raleigh based firm giving it the complexion he envisioned at the turn of the century.
Rick, who's a Detroit native, discusses how he was recruited for a job in Raleigh and ended moving down from Motown, liking it, and finding his way. He details his firsthand experience of witnessing the Raleigh/Durham market explode with growth culminating in Apple and Google announcing the establishment of campuses in Raleigh & Durham respectively.
Rick takes us inside his many professional endeavors. On top of running FWV Rick produces major Hollywood films, owns the Daytona Tortugas, who are the Cincinnati Reds minor league team, and invests in a football/hockey helmet technology company aimed at pro and college sports, and much more. The turnstile of "to-do's" is constantly revolving for Rick French.  
Rick also shares the extreme story of how before he entered the business world, he was a professional tennis player, when he was assaulted and stabbed six times. The grueling rehab he was facing among other factors led him to put down professional tennis, and allowed him to move into other parts of his professional life where he had more of a chance than tennis looking back. He shares his perspective of gratitude after suffering this unfortunate victimization, and how his perspective changed around life's ups and downs. Rick French is always looking forward. FWV has won many awards over its 25 year history and is up for more in 2021. Take a listen to someone who's firm is thriving in the fast paced ever changing world in 2021. He's pulling the strings there along with his great FWV team.  He's also involved in multiple businesses and investments yielding fruit. A good listen to someone who has the pulse of 2021 achieving great pandemic results for clients, French West Vaughan Chairman & CEO Rick French. fwv-us.com

Understood Executive Director of Communications Joanna Roses discusses her important role at Understood. Understood is a social impact, non-profit organization dedicated to helping those who learn and think differently thrive.  Joanna discusses how Understood acts as resource for children and students who learn and think differently. From names like Dyslexia to ADHD, Joanna articulates a few examples of these differences. She also conveys Understood's importance and how, from teacher's to parents, understanding that their student or child learns and thinks differently is vital to both the child and the caretakers health and well-being. This must be accounted for in the teaching and raising of the child. Understood provides resources for children who learn and think differenly that may not take or respond to teaching or parenting that doesn't account for their differences. Many of said differences are rooted in brain chemistry that can't be "coached" or "disciplined" out of the child. It may not be the child's choice, rather they need to be undertstood.  

Joanna addresses how her work at Understood is extermely important to the world, but she views all the communications jobs she's held as all important.  Including most in the for-profit world from working on the agency side to SAS. She's excelled communicating in various different verticals and touches on some of them. We also learn what two attributes are Joanna's greatest traits as a communicator!  Listen, it makes sense with her current work at Understood!

If you're a parent, teacher, or neither take a listen to a versatile communications professional convey the work she's doing. While Understood is not a counseling center, it's a great resource for parents/caretakers/teachers and in-turn their children to educate themselves and provide their children with the best possible chance to succeed!  Listen to Joanna, and then visit Understood to see the amazing work her and her colleagues are doing!

Benefitting his clients around terms like "growth" and "revenue" and driving those ends interest Matt Chollet more than phrases like "new business". Matt is about to celebrate his five year anniversary at Catapult, where he's been serving as President since December of '19.
In our podcast discussion, Matt recalls how the world changed shortly after he took on the President role. He shares Catapult's services and verticals. He discusses why while rejection is part of the job & never fun, it's mostly not personal in the business world. He gives a peek into his journey from early in his career coming to terms and depersonalizing it, and ascribes for the listeners all the factors that aren't in one's control for a sale to materialize or not. So Matt focuses on what he can control, and that is presenting Catapult's specific value-add to the prospect the best he can.  
Matt also takes us inside his mindset around his job duties, how Catapult's business has changed the last five years, his time in Florida, Atlanta, attending playing baseball in the northeast, and then making his way back down south, where he's settled as President for a thriving growing agency. Matt also is a triathlete, outdoorsmen, and analogizes how that physical motor transfers to his professional motor around delivering growth and revenue these days for Catapult's clients! There is a competitive crossover too! Matt takes us into a mind strategy session of his in the middle of a rock climb! It's a great story of a President of a thriving fast growing agency who is churning and solving new challenges every day. Ultimately Matt and Catapult are succeeding at achieving revenue and growth for Catapult's clients. In this podcast, Matt details why! https://www.catapultnewbusiness.com/matt/

A pleasure and honor to have the GRAMMY Museum Chief Program Officer Rita George as a guest. Rita recently moved into the CPO position after years as Chief Operating Officer. Rita joined the GRAMMY Museum in 2008 when it opened.  She has overseen everything under the sun from curating the museum, to curating 100+ travelling exhibitions, to managing staff, to DE&I initiatives, and MUCH more! As part of the leadership team, George provides support to the Museum's President and Board of Directors, policy development and HR initiatives. 

Rita describes how hard the museum was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic closing to visitors for 15 months, and gets into the entire music industry and what's she's seen behind the curtain since March of 2020. The GRAMMY Museum, which is located in Downtown LA adjacent to Staples Center, had to pivot to entirely virtual galleries and Rita managed that. Rita also discusses all the music education programs she has helped assemble at the GRAMMY Museum and throughout the country.  Additionally while the museum is a support system for the annual awards, the exhibitions are not beholden to them. The exhibitions don't just hone in on said artist's history with The Grammy Awards, rather the displays (photos, music, tour videos, & more) are a look into said artist's entire career around music.

Prior to joining the GRAMMY Museum, Rita worked for 13 years at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland, OH and was part of that opening in 1995.  She discusses her favorite induction ceremony performance (which the host agrees with), and discusses building up that museum as "Visitor Services Director."  Rita also delves a bit into artist's she gotten to know and developed a rapport with. Rita also tells the great story of how she was hired away by the GRAMMY Museum in 2008.  Take a listen to an interview with a C-Suite executive who deals in the business of music education, proliferates growth of the industry, wears many hats, and hear first hand someone's heart and soul fully immersed in their work. Rita George is an Ohio native and graduate of THE Ohio State University.  www.grammymuseum.org

Mark joins the podcast to discuss this exciting new Newport Beach, CA office opening as Managing Partner. Mark delves into why this westward expansion for national Riemer & Braunstein makes sense and gives the firm a whole new reach. Prior to this recent office opening, Chicago is the furthest west Riemer & Braunstein has had physical offices in the US during its 85-year storied history.  Mark details the benefits to clients, prospects, and potential employees of having an office in California. Some of those benefits Mark touches on are the size of California's economy to the ability the firm has to staff California licensed attorneys with local expertise.  He also describes why his skills & experience practicing law in California for 18 years representing real estate lenders with respect to the origination, administration and restructuring of real estate secured loans and unsecured credit facilities, with a focus on high-value balance sheet lending align perfectly with what Riemer & Braunstein specializes in. Mark puts the cherry on top too, not just giving the professional benefits and major companies surrounding the new office location, but the personal perks of living in Newport Beach/Southern California from geography to networking!  He expands on the Covid-19 Office/WFH outlook he has planned, as well how many new attorneys he expects to employ.  Listen to this podcast about an A+ law firm (Riemer & Braunstein LLP) taking its brand west from the man they tapped to open and build their new Newport Beach, CA office, Managing Partner Mark Appelbaum. www.riemerlaw.com

Darius joins my podcast to discuss his marketing and communications duties at Safari Energy, and how Safari serves the solar marketplace.  Darius outlines in detail why the future is bright for solar moving forward.  He explains how the pandemic affected Safari's business, as well as his marketing and communications duties.  Darius also articulates how after a long time working in the agency PR world he moved over to the client side, and how the agency world helped prepare him for this opportunity. He gives a good explanation for all marketers and communicators out there drawing on the various verticals he's worked in, why marketing and comms is a transferrable skillset across industries. That said, Darius loves the work he's currently engaged in at Safari.  He touches on projects Safari is currently involved in and why the company has a great future from the area of work they are engaged in, to the tremendous competent colleagues Safari has to serve their clients!  Darius has a great background and this interview is a quick hitting education on solar, Safari Energy, marketing, and communications.  Listen to an industry vet lay it all out!  www.safarienergy.com

David joins the podcast to discuss his new business Nineteen88 Strategies, LLC a consulting firm he launched this past May. Incredibly unique circumstances caused David to found his firm that are truly admirable. David delves into how he had just started and was hired as Vice President of Communications at Amazon Web Services when his daughter was heartbreakingly diagnosed with Leukemia.  With said situation at that point David felt he could not give AWS the time nor have the schedule flexibility to tend to his daughter and admirably resigned from Amazon.  A month and a half later he founded Nineteen88 Strategies, LLC.  He details why he named his company such and 1988's suite of consulting services from Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, Public Speaking, DE&I, to Business Strategy.  He also details his time cut short working at AWS, different high ranking positions he previously held at General Motors, General Motors Defense, and Exelis.  Additonally he discusses how his undergraduate and graduate education at The United States Naval Academy prepared him for his career and served his life. This is a fascinating interview with a true entrepreneur who walks the walk & was inspired by Morgan Freeman's famous line in The Shawshank Redemption, "Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying."  David has chosen to get busy living!  Hear his journey and find him at https://www.1988strategies.com/

Airshare CMO Andy Tretiak joins my podcast to discuss the growth of the aviation business and the leisure travel company he spearheads marketing for.  Andy delves into the shift caused by the pandemic away from commercial air travel to flying privately.  He articulates the advantages for the customer with Airshares' business model by charging by the day versus by the hour that many competitors implore.  Alone that can save businesses and leisure travelers substantial costs. Airshare also flies Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes's family from Tyler, TX to all of his NFL games and back. We learn about Airshare's large midwest footprint (HQ KC, MO) and is in process of expanding to serve the entire country.  Addiionally Andy has such a diverse marketing background across multiple verticals working for various employers, that not only has prepared him for this Airshare opportunity, but he's also been a plug and play superstar from the sports vertical, to the UX/UI vertical, to now avaiation.  A great education by a top marketer on the benefits from health, to money, to effciency of flying private in today's day and age whether it's for businesses to use for employee travel or leisure travel by families or individuals. www.flyairshare.com

B.J. Talley joins our latest episode to discuss Gladius Communications which he founded in 2019.  B.J. takes us through the impetus that made him make the jump after a 20 year very successful run as a corporate communications lead and other high ranking positions at many major employers including working as a civilian public affairs officer with the US Navy.  B.J. takes us through how his diverse background prepared him to make this leap to entrepreneurship.  He discusses a couple interesting account projects he's worked on over the years worth a listen.  B.J. details Gladius Communications' philosophy he developed,, and how he best serves his clients to set them up for results from the moment of engagement. Gladius specializes in M&A work, spinoffs, employee onboarding, and exit interviews.  They also do crisis and corporate communications, and much more.  B.J. also takes us on his path to return to his home state of North Carolina after 20 years living in a myriad of great cities crafting his career.  Chapel Hill, N.C. is home to him, where he went to college at UNC with his wife, and it gave them both as well as their daughter the opportunity to be close to family.  B.J. also started his firm in 2019 shortly before the pandemic, and he chronicles the initial shock and challenges to a new business owner the pandemic presented, and how Gladius had to adjust as they were just building clients. With that said, Gladius has come roaring back in 2021, and B.J. gives his outlook on the PR industry which is in demand currently, as well as designing Gladius Communications "location agnostic" model for the the new ways of the world.  He also sprinkles in the interview advice to people thinking about launching their own business, and to PR practitioners both starting and in the middle of their careers.   An exciting deep dive with a forward thinking entrepreneur forging a successful company on the cutting edge of the PR space. Enjoy! www.gladiuspr.com