From There to Here

Brian Riemer is the CEO of Riemer Insurance Group, a family business founded by his father in 1978. Before returning to the business, Brian built a career in investment banking and private equity.

In this episode, we talk about the lessons we carry from childhood, the importance of relationships and the people we can count on, what it means to be prepared, navigating family business succession, and preserving what matters.

About Brian Riemer

Brian Riemer is the CEO of Riemer Insurance Group, a second-generation family business founded by his father in 1978. With a background in investment banking and private equity, Brian brings a unique perspective to business leadership, combining financial expertise with a commitment to relationships, integrity, and long-term growth.

Before joining the family business in 2019, Brian worked at Peter J. Solomon Company and Audax Group, gaining experience in mergers, acquisitions, and strategic business development. He holds an economics degree from Harvard College and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Today, Brian leads Riemer Insurance Group alongside his brother, Paul, balancing innovation with the values that shaped the company's beginnings. He is also actively involved in several South Florida community organizations, including the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and Miami Children's Museum.

You can find Brian on LinkedIn: Brian Riemer
Visit the Riemer Insurance Group website: https://www.riemerinsurance.com/

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
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Tara Hamberger is a technologist, entrepreneur, problem solver, and the founder of RootedCare+.

Her path to get there has been anything but linear.

In this episode, we talk about the influence of two very different women who raised her, putting yourself in position for opportunity, learning by doing, finding joy in solving difficult problems, and how a lifetime of seemingly different experiences eventually began to connect.

About Tara Hamberger

Tara Hamberger is the founder and CEO of RootedCare+, a health technology company behind Roo, an AI care companion that supports aging adults, people with disabilities and chronic conditions, and the families and care teams around them through simple text messaging.

A technologist, strategist, and entrepreneur, Tara's unconventional career has spanned radio, photography, marketing, software development, healthcare, and entrepreneurship. With more than 14 years of experience in B2B SaaS and revenue operations, she has developed a passion for learning, solving complex problems, and transforming ideas into practical solutions.

Her work with RootedCare+ brings those experiences together with a deep personal motivation. After witnessing her grandmother's experience with dementia and the challenges families face between healthcare visits, Tara set out to create a more accessible way to support those providing and receiving care. She developed Roo's technology herself, combining her technical expertise with a lifelong commitment to helping others.

Today, RootedCare+ works with healthcare providers, state health programs, and community health workers to extend support into rural and underserved communities. Tara was named one of the 100 Women to Know in America for 2026 and is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Find Tara at:

• Website: rootedcare.plus
• LinkedIn: Tara Hamberger

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
https://missionmatters.com/author/Jason-Shupp/

Jane D'Alesandro is an entrepreneur, author, and executive in her family's business, where she is helping shape a human-first approach to technology and the future of work.

In this episode, we talk about the people who see potential in us, learning to listen before trying to fix, recognizing the value of those who often get overlooked, keeping humans at the center of AI, and finding the courage to keep taking the next step.

About Jane D'Alesandro

Jane D'Alesandro is an AI operations strategist who believes the biggest opportunity in the AI revolution belongs to the people who already understand how businesses really run. After 15 years in operations and process improvement, she saw that companies weren't struggling for lack of tools, but for lack of people who knew how to integrate them into real workflows. Jane helps frontline and mid-career professionals reposition their existing skills as exactly what's needed now. She works at Amplefi OPS and her upcoming book, The Floor You Carry, releases Fall/Winter 2026.

https://www.amazon.com/Floor-You-Carry-Hardest-Easy-ebook/dp/B0GWTV73X8

Connect with Jane on LinkedIn: Jane Dalesandro

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
https://missionmatters.com/author/Jason-Shupp/

Nida Leardprasopsuk has spent nearly two decades studying how people grow, lead, and build relationships. Today, she's taking what she's learned and applying it to an ambitious question: can we create better ways for people to connect?

In this episode, we talk about why our relationship patterns follow us everywhere, the connection between identity and growth, rethinking how technology connects us, building communities around character and shared values, and how one person can change the trajectory of your life.

About Nida Leardprasopsuk
Nida Leardprasopsuk is a Master Certified Coach (ICF) and systems-oriented practitioner working at the intersection of identity, relationships, leadership, and human systems. With over two decades of experience spanning business, psychology, and personal transformation, she supports high-performing individuals, leaders, and changemakers in creating alignment across career, relationships, family, leadership, and self. Grounded in the belief that human challenges are systemic—what shows up in the boardroom often mirrors what shows up in intimacy, family dynamics, boundaries, confidence, and self-worth—Nida helps clients transform at the identity and relational level so change naturally ripples into every area of life. Her background includes executive and leadership coaching, couples and family systems work, sex therapy, identity reinvention, and organizational culture, enabling her to translate insights across contexts in a way that is both deeply practical and profoundly human. She is also the license holder and organizer of TEDxThonglorWomen, where she curates conversations on identity, relationships, power, and societal change.

Find out more about Nida Leardprasopsuk at:

• Website: nidaleard.com
• Instagram: nidaleardofficial
• LinkedIn: Nida Leardprasopsuk, MCC

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
https://missionmatters.com/author/Jason-Shupp/

Estefania Simon-Sasyk is the founder and principal of Mycelium Gastronomy Network, a global network using food and gastronomy as a lens for addressing complex challenges and creating change.

She describes her origin story as one of movement—and that thread runs through much of our conversation.

In this episode, we talk about how movement shapes perspective, finding stability in unexpected places, the education that comes from working in kitchens, seeing food as part of a much larger system, and why complex problems benefit from a diversity of experiences and perspectives.

About Estefania Simon-Sasyk:

Estefania Simon-Sasyk is the founder of Mycelium Gastronomy Network, a global network of practitioners using gastronomy to address complex challenges across food systems, business, communities, and society.

After more than a decade working in professional kitchens around the world, she transitioned from cooking into food innovation, research, foresight, and regional development. Her work has since spanned projects with governments, universities, food companies, NGOs, farmers, and communities across multiple continents.

Through Mycelium, Estefania brings together practitioners from diverse disciplines, cultures, and lived experiences to approach food not simply as something we eat, but as a system connected to health, culture, education, sustainability, economic development, and social change. She holds a Master of Science in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from HEC Paris and is an award-winning futurist.

Find out more about Estefania:

• Website: https://www.myceliumgastronomy.com/
• LinkedIn: Estefania Simon-Sasyk

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
https://missionmatters.com/author/Jason-Shupp/

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan is the founder of Ascend HSI Advisory Partners, a firm that helps individuals and families navigate the complexities of U.S. immigration. Vas's path into immigration was anything but planned. He came to the United States from India to study engineering, found himself stranded abroad and without a job during COVID, and used that uncertainty as an opportunity to pursue a long-held desire to help others. What began as a small blog grew into an international nonprofit, work that unexpectedly shaped his own immigration journey and eventually led him to build a company around helping others navigate theirs.

In this episode, we talk about the influence of his childhood, finding opportunity within disruption, turning personal experience into expertise, building credibility in an emerging space, and why you shouldn’t wait for the perfect time.

About Vasanthan Ramakrishnan:
Vasanthan Ramakrishnan, born in Madurai, India, is an entrepreneur, immigration consultant, technologist, and human rights activist known for developing AI-based child safety systems and founding Ascend HSI Advisory Partners, a firm specializing in U.S. employment-based visas. He began his technical career at the MIT Hackathon, where he led the development of a non-contact glucometer later deployed in rural India, and went on to found the Feminist Pen Foundation, where he created CySafe, an AI tool to detect cyberbullying across languages and platforms. He has supported over 300 immigration clients with more than 160 successful filings, received multiple honorary doctorates and awards, authored two books, and gained recognition in global media for his contributions to technology and child safety advocacy.

Find out more about Vasanthan at:

• Website: https://ascendhsi.com/
• Instagram: vas_ramakrishnan
• LinkedIn: Vasanthan Ramakrishnan

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
https://missionmatters.com/author/Jason-Shupp/

Denley McIntosh is an executive coach, speaker, podcaster, and entrepreneur. In this episode, Denley talks about growing up in a low-income and remarkably diverse neighborhood in Toronto, the culture shock that came with leaving it, and how those early experiences shaped his understanding of people, empathy, and belonging. We follow his journey through engineering, manufacturing, career disruption, and ultimately into the leadership work he does today. Along the way, we talk about poverty as a teacher, resilience as a tool for reinvention, the importance of pausing before you pivot, why culture change starts with the leader, and vulnerability as a strategic advantage.

About Denley McIntosh:

Denley McIntosh is an award-winning culture change leader, executive coach, keynote speaker, and founder of RenewIQ. With more than two decades of experience spanning engineering, technology, public service, organizational change, and people development, Denley helps leaders build stronger, more inclusive workplace cultures and navigate change with greater intention.

His work has reached organizations across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors and includes executive coaching, strategic planning, leadership development, facilitation, and culture transformation. Denley is a recipient of Ontario’s Amethyst Award for public service excellence and has contributed to leadership and inclusion initiatives both in Canada and internationally.

Denley holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Master of Theological Studies from McMaster University, where his studies focused on worldviews and culture. He is also the host of The Coach’s Corner podcast, where he explores leadership, relationships, resilience, and the human side of work.

Learn more about Denley at:
Website: https://www.thecoachscorner.ca/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denleymcintosh

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
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Wes Rowlands learned his earliest lessons in business and finance not in a classroom, but on a golf course at eleven years old. Raised by a single mother and determined to change the trajectory of his family, he turned necessity into an education. He started first as a caddie, then college internships, Wall Street, and ultimately the wealth-management businesses he leads today. In this episode, Wes shares why showing up often matters more than credentials, why business is emotionally harder than it is intellectually complicated, and how creating value with humility became both his philosophy and his mission. We also talk about opportunity through observation, optimizing for access, and education with application.

About Wes Rowlands

Wesley Rowlands helps business owners build long-term net worth through strategic investing and disciplined financial planning. With nearly 20 years of experience across Wall Street, consulting, and private wealth management, Wesley specializes in translating complex financial strategies into clear, actionable guidance that supports sustainable wealth growth.

Wesley is a partner and advisor at Atikan Wealth Partners, where his team manages over $570 million in assets. He holds his Series 7, Series 63, and Series 65 registrations through LPL Financial, earned his undergraduate degree in finance from Drexel University, and completed the Executive Education Wealth Management Program at The Wharton School of Business. He is currently pursuing his Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®) designation through NYU.

More from Wes at:

• Website: https://www.atikanwealth.com/
• Instagram: @wes.rowlands
• LinkedIn: Wes Rowlands

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
https://missionmatters.com/author/Jason-Shupp/

Drawing on his journey from academia to leading transformations and investing in a portfolio of companies, Matt Symes shares how he helps founders get unstuck by reframing value and aligning personal aims with business strategy. Along the way, we talk about responsible critique, defining what matters, operating beyond the P&L, your best life, and human innovation with AI.

About Matt Symes

Matt Symes is a transformation strategist, AI-first architect, and founder of Levership, where he helps founder-led businesses scale without losing control of what they’ve built. His work is grounded in a core belief that growth should only happen in ways a leader can sustainably support, both mentally and operationally. Matt helps leaders identify what breaks under scale, from founder-dependent sales models to operations that haven’t evolved fast enough for the business they’ve become.

Matt has worked with more than 500 organizations across various industries and contributed to over $1B in profitable growth. He’s passionate about working with high-growth smaller businesses. Since 2023, he has worked with more than a thousand leaders to turn AI from abstract potential into practical execution, focusing on how it can restructure work rather than simply add tools. Matt is the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at UNB’s TME program, a Halifax Chamber Business Leader of the Year, and a multi-year Atlantic Business Magazine Top 50 CEO.

Find out more about Matt at:

• Website: https://levership.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-symes-8328a765/

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
https://missionmatters.com/author/Jason-Shupp/

Krista Cloud's path runs from a passion for climbing rock and riding trails in Southwest Missouri and Northwest Arkansas to brewing non alcoholic beverages for her own community. What started as home experiments to have something better than beer at bike and climbing events has grown into a brand built on natural ingredients and intentional choices.

In this conversation, we talk about figuring it out, listening to customers early, outgrowing your space, leading alongside your spouse, realizing your capabilities, and understanding functional beverages.

About Krista Cloud:
Krista Cloud is the co-founder of Natural State Beverage Company, a Northwest Arkansas craft beverage company creating kombucha, functional sodas, and other naturally inspired drinks for people who value health, adventure, and great taste. What began as a home-brewing hobby alongside her husband, has grown into a thriving regional brand built on the belief that beverages should fuel an active lifestyle rather than work against it. Today, Krista helps lead the company through product development, brand building, and community engagement. As an entrepreneurial professional with over 10 years of experience in operations, customer relations, and marketing, she takes pride in creating thoughtful and innovative products that bring joy to others and support a healthier lifestyle.

Learn more about Krista at:
Website: https://www.naturalstatebeveragecompany.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krista-cloud-3b33a72b7/

To learn more, visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-shupp-18b4619b/

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
https://missionmatters.com/author/Jason-Shupp/